Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area

[5] The GBA—with a total population of approximately 86 million people—includes nine mega cities of Guangdong province: Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, Huizhou, and Zhaoqing as well as two special administrative regions, Hong Kong, and Macao (Macau).[6] Surrounding the Pearl River Delta with a total area of 56,000 km2 (comparable in size to Croatia), it is the largest and the richest economic region in South China.Within the discourse on regional planning and mega-city positioning, the Pearl River Delta's spatial structure has been contoured and realigned according to changing administrative boundaries, economic productivity, and infrastructural connectivity.In the early 2000s, Chinese scholars began using the term “Greater Pearl River Delta” (GPRD) which described the 9 + 2 city agglomeration that encompassed post-handover Hong Kong and Macao.The GPRD was conceptualized as a series of lesser cities as industrial nodes with specialist functions clustering around two prominent cores – Guangzhou, the provincial capital, and Shenzhen.[10] A somewhat similar idea should later be mentioned in the English version of China's 13th Five-Year Plan, taking the Pearl River Delta and including the larger province of Guangdong.[11] Four years later finally, on 13 April 2017, the heading of a piece of news released at the English language government website of the State Council adopted the name "Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Bay Area".The cities of Guangzhou, Zhuhai, Hong Kong, and Macao for instance "each possess constituent and distinctly islanded territorial niches that are focused on particular industrial areas."[15] The entire area has temperate springs (March to May), hot and wet summers (June to August), clear and cool autumns (September to November), and mild, rainy winters (December to February).[25] 22 companies from the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) make their mark on the 2024 Fortune Global 500 list, including 17 from Guangdong and 5 from Hong Kong.The GBA is taking significant steps towards carbon neutrality, focusing on the growth of renewable energy sources like solar power and offshore wind farms.The ambitious goal foresees a linkage of the nine cities in Guangdong province's Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong and Macau into an economically integrated world-class business hub.For instance, developing a world-class airport cluster in the region and building inter-city high-speed rail links and motorways to improve connectivity both within the GBA and beyond.The former Portuguese colony is envisioned to develop into a centre for international tourism, leisure and cultural exchange, as well as a trading hub with Portuguese-speaking countries.[28] To achieve this goal, the four designated “core cities” will be developed according to their respective comparative advantages: The Reform and Opening Up process triggered China's rapid economic rise over the past three decades.The first SEZs were established in 1979, starting with Shenzhen next to Hong Kong and Zhuhai adjacent to Macao, pioneering experiments devised to exploit the capability of differences of each city.[30] Due to its industrial strength, advanced infrastructure, and vast human resources, GBA is an ideal place for developing and implementing smart city solutions.[citation needed] The main challenges faced by the GBA while advancing urban solutions is growing environmental and air pollution, improvements in cross-border mobility of people and goods, as well as capital flow, information, and data.[31] In terms of environmental problems, a study by Wang et al. projected that urbanization and climate change will lead to an 8.87% increase in the exposure duration of dangerous discomfort (Humidex equal to/above 45) for GBA residents by 2030.The Guangdong FTZ is supposed to be the first mover and the pilot region designated by the Central Government as the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao in-depth cooperation demonstration zone and serves as a place to promote the service trade liberalization of the three regions..It is a place for the Central and local governments to test new policies, to explore new development models and better integrate the economy with international practices and with Hong Kong and Macao.This plan was published by the Guangdong Government in December 2017, aiming to build a region approximately 180 kilometers long starting from the Guangzhou-Foshan border in the north, running through downtown Guangzhou, Songshan Lake in Dongguan, and downtown Shenzhen, to Dapeng New District in Shenzhen in the south into the core area of GBA's National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zone.Among them are the “University Town” located on the Xiaoguwei Island in Guangzhou is considered as one of the “ten cores” of the “Science and Technology Innovation Corridor (STIC)”-blueprint for “China's Silicon Valley”.The Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge, a key transportation link, is expected to open, dramatically cutting travel time across the Pearl River Delta.Being part of the Silk Road as well as Chinese international marine gates and trade hotspot for the last two thousand years, GBA features rich palette of cultural and folk traditions, languages, and food.Among them, a distinct European ambience – the Cantonese culture with its center in Guangzhou (also known as Canton and formerly Romanized as Kwangchow), Macau, eastern Guangxi, and Hong Kong.The first known ships from the area are believed to have been constructed by the people of the Nanyue Kingdom (204–112 BCE), who employed them for cultural and economic exchanges with countries as far as present-day Vietnam.The ambitious goal foresees a linkage of the nine cities in Guangdong province's Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong and Macau into an integrated economy and world-class business hub.[52] The Ministry of Education (MOE) held a press conference on June 2, 2021, to disclose the "Report on the Language Life Situation in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Greater Bay Area (2021)".There are also plans to promote information sharing between the Mainland, Hong Kong and Macao, and to strengthen police cooperation and exchanges in order to deal with traditional and non-traditional security threats.5The claimed province of Taiwan no longer have any internal division announced by Ministry of Civil Affairs of PRC, due to lack of actual jurisdiction.