Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Non-Fiction 2020complete | Page 115

Have you ever wondered what a place would look like that fuses diversity in education, culture, and
finance? Well you don’t need to wonder, the Greater Bay Area (henceforth referred to as the GBA) will
foster its cities’ strengths to encourage future success in the area.
Hong Kong is a regional education hub that possesses a leading position in global rankings of students'
strengths, while China strives to develop itself as a world-class research center. Out of 1400 universities
across 92 countries, the top 2 universities of Hong Kong ranked 35th and 47th, while the top universities in
China ranked 23rd and 24th. Hong Kong’s innovation and technology sector, tallied with that of Shenzhen
– the Shenzhen-Hong Kong technology cluster – ranked the world’s second largest (based on the Global
Innovation Index 2019). Of the top 100 science and technology clusters, China has racked up 18, second
only to the United States. The success of the GBA depends on whether the area’s strong cluster of top
universities can demonstrate leading and path-breaking research, innovation, and technological
advancements. This will help develop the Greater Bay Area as an international education base as well as
open up collaborative innovation opportunities for students in Hong Kong and Guangdong. Educational
cooperation between Hong Kong and the Mainland will be able to reach a new pedestal, achieving good
progress in areas such as variety of educational programmes, student exchange, scientific research
collaboration, and professional training. To further foster creativity and innovation within the region,
people studying in the area could stay after their graduation to seek economic, creative, or employment
opportunities in nearby cities. Thus, the present-day problem of fluctuating social mobility in the cities of
the GBA can be alleviated. Moreover, joining the GBA initiative would bring the SARs and also the
Guangdong province new technology, knowledge, and an influx of new talents. For example, Shenzhen is
known as a forefront technology hub. Hong Kong may experience exchanges in the technology sector, such
as submitting technological issues across the border and receiving unparalleled advice from certified
professionals within the GBA. By providing resources which bolster productivity, learning, growth, and
aiding collaboration with leading industry professionals from Shenzhen (which will definitely help to
improve the technological level of local products) both Hong Kong and Macau will see the benefits of these
type of exchanges. There are considerable perks of building an open community of innovation and
technology throughout the GBA. For example, it will form alliance across diverse crucial sectors such as
entrepreneurship, financial technology, and commercial applications. Further, it would also support Macau
as a training base for talented entrepreneurs who are fluent in both Chinese and Portuguese, hence turning
the area into an education and training base.
The initiative is an economic enticement for Hong Kong and Macau to start building stronger ties with the
mainland. It will also greatly benefit Hong Kong’s economy as the plan brings about the movement of
capital and goods. With this, local companies may attract more investment, attain a better yield in the stock
market, as well as providing Hong Kong businesses with a more substantial stake market in the mainland.
Developing the GBA into an international financial hub would make it an important component of the One
Belt, One Road initiative, thus it would encourage the development of Macau into a Sino-Portuguese stage
for financial services. This would support the development of specialised financial products in the city as the
overseas experience of Hong Kong businesses would help GBA companies in their efforts to “go global”,
which would be an important factor in the city’s future success. On one hand, Hong Kong's status as an
international connector should naturally enable the city to promote the GBA initiative overseas and attract
more capital and talents therein for further development.
Hong Kong could benefit from integration with Guangdong by gaining greater access to the Chinese market
in the financial and professional services sector. Hong Kong only exports 7.5% of all its financial services to
China - about a third of what it exports to the United Kingdom. This exportation of financial expertise is
significantly lower than it perhaps should be considering Hong Kong’s close relationship and geographical
location in relation to the mainland. By transferring financial expertise from city to city within the GBA,
each city or major city of the area would enjoy benefits in the finance industry by directly increasing GDP
growth through promoting domestic investment and growth through capital imports and reducing
consumption volatility. Transferring financial expertise leads to healthy competition among the GBA cities