Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Non-Fiction 2020complete | Page 92

A Dream not Shared by All
Harrow International School Hong Kong, Webb, Stephanie - 15
Imagine a utopia. A place where bullet trains and monorails glide effortlessly, winding in and out of different
districts. A place where towering skyscrapers stretch miles into the sky, creating a labyrinth of glass and
concrete. A place where robots, instead of humans, offer their services in restaurants and stores. An urban
cluster of cities where anything can be made possible, with a population twice the size of Canada.
This is already becoming a reality. It will be known as the Greater Bay Area (GBA). It is Mainland China’s
ambitious plan to establish an international all-in-one innovation/entertainment/ financial hub.
How do they plan to do this?
The plan entails integrating and developing the nine cities of Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Foshan, Dongguan,
Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Huizhou, Zhaoqing, Jiangmen in Guangdong Province and the two special
administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.
Although this seems like a lot of cities, it only really takes up 0.6% of China’s land mass with the population
of the GBA, exceeding 69 million, accounting for 5% of China’s total population.
However, what is most impressive about the Greater Bay Area is that its monetary output (Gross Domestic
Product or GDP) per capita (or per person) at US$23,000 already exceeds the two other major Chinese city
clusters of Jing Jin Ji (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei) at US$13,000 and Yangtze River Delta at US$11,000.
With further development, the Greater Bay Area could become the powerhouse of the whole of China,
accounting for an even more significant percentage of China’s GDP than its current 12%. With further
integration supported by government policies, the GBA is expected to rival or even overtake the three
largest bay areas in the world - Tokyo, New York and San Francisco!
In order to fully understand how China is planning on accomplishing this ambitious task, we will examine
the blueprint of the GBA plan carefully.
The fundamental idea is to leverage on the existing strengths of the various cities, so that each complements
the others, rather than competing.
Hong Kong and Shenzhen will play the role of the international finance centres.
As it stands, Hong Kong already operates the world’s largest offshore Renminbi (RMB) business and
financing centre. Generally speaking, when companies in the Mainland want to expand their businesses,
instead of borrowing money from banks, they might consider raising this money through listing on the stock
markets, known as Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), or selling bonds, a type of debt, to investors.
This is where Hong Kong comes in with its unique financial service offerings. Mainland China does not
allow free exchangeability of RMB into other currencies such as the US dollar (USD). In addition, the
Mainland also restricts capital inflow/outflow i.e. how much money can be brought in and out of China.
This has given Hong Kong an opportunity to become an important financial intermediary that connects the
Mainland to the rest of the world. Hong Kong has helped many mainland companies tap into a vast pool of
foreign investors by conducting their IPOs on the Hong Kong stock market as well as selling Mainland
companies’ bonds to global investors. The total amount of capital raised from IPOs in Hong Kong and
Shenzhen combined has ranked the highest in the world since 2015.
In addition, Shenzhen is expected to be the incubator for technology companies such as Huawei, Tencent
and DJI Technology. Most of China’s massive technology companies originate from Shenzhen since the city