"China is an important market for multinational companies to better grasp market opportunities and embrace the future." At the recent "National Development and Reform Commission and U.S. Multinational Enterprises in China High-level Roundtable - Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Station", AmCham China's President Michael Ho said that the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has advantages in shipping, manufacturing and procurement environments, and many American companies are interested in increasing investment in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
5,6 square kilometers, more than 8000 million people, GDP of more than 2022 trillion yuan in 13... There is no doubt that the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is one of the regions with the highest degree of openness and economic vitality in China. With the full resumption of personnel exchanges between the Mainland, Hong Kong and Macao, the flow of people and logistics has become increasingly prosperous, and the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is activating the "accelerator". The huge market and opportunities have released a strong "magnet effect", attracting a group of enterprises to cast "votes of confidence" and "votes of confidence" with real money.
Boost business confidence
According to a survey recently released by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council and Standard Chartered Bank, the "Standard Chartered Greater Bay Area Business Climate Index" increased to 39.5 in the first quarter from 51.3 in the fourth quarter of last year, of which the "Business Activity Expectation Index" jumped to 61.5, the highest increase since the index was launched, and more than half of the respondents said they had raised their business targets for this year. About 60% of respondents expect to recover or even exceed pre-pandemic levels in terms of labor, capacity utilization, orders, and sales in the fourth quarter of this year.
"In the past two months, the company's business volume has more than tripled compared with the same period last year, and many customers want to land projects in the Mainland cities in the Greater Bay Area, and also put forward the need to visit the mainland for exchanges." Wang Jie, who has been "Hong Kong drifting" for more than 10 years, founded a cultural communication company in Hong Kong, and the booming development momentum of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has brought him a large number of business orders.
Foreign companies have also accelerated their investment in the Greater Bay Area. In the first quarter of this year, CSPC Huizhou Phase III ethylene project preliminary investment agreement was officially signed, the United States Amway invested 6 million yuan to upgrade the Guangzhou production base, Germany Covestro announced the establishment of its largest thermoplastic polyurethane production base in Zhuhai... At the Guangdong special promotion event of the "Year of Investing in China" held at the end of March, 3 foreign-funded cooperation projects were completed, with a total investment of 74.905 billion yuan. New energy, advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, artificial intelligence and big data, a number of foreign-funded projects have chosen to take root in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
Burst with innovation vitality
"The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is moving towards high-quality development and technological innovation is making great strides." Lord Davidson, a member of the House of Lords of the British Parliament, recently participated in the thematic forum "Understanding China-Bay Area Dialogue", and discussed the high-quality development of the Greater Bay Area with people from all walks of life from all walks of life. He said: "There are 16 startups in the field of quantum computing in the Greater Bay Area, including the Center for Brain Science and Brain-like Research, all of which reflect the focus on future technologies. ”
In today's Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, technological innovation has become a new engine for regional development. Hurun Research Institute recently released the "2023 Global Unicorn List", which lists unlisted companies around the world founded after 2000 with a value of more than US$10 billion. According to the list, the number of global unicorn companies reached 1361,63, of which 12 were in the Greater Bay Area, an increase of 30 from a year ago and more than double the <> before the pandemic.
"Where unicorn companies gather, it means that there is a better entrepreneurial ecology here." Hu Run, chairman and chief research officer of Hurun Report, said that the number of unicorn companies in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is comparable to the number of unicorn companies in India, and the number of unicorn companies in Guangzhou alone has increased by 12 in the past year to 22, which is equivalent to the number of unicorn enterprises in France.
The new Songshan Lake Material Laboratory Park has been officially opened, adding another innovation landmark to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area; The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Innovation and Entrepreneurship Intellectual Property Integrated Service Platform was launched in Nansha, Guangzhou, accelerating the complementary advantages and integrated development of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao in the field of intellectual property... As more and more technological production factors gather and flow in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, innovation vitality is bursting in the Greater Bay Area.
Accelerate rule convergence
The key to building the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area into a first-class bay area lies in the convergence of rules and mechanisms, and the enhancement of market integration. Recently, Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao jointly announced 110 "Bay Area Standards" in Shenzhen, of which 58 standards were led or co-led by relevant units in Hong Kong and Macao. The standard list covers 25 fields such as food, Cantonese cuisine, traditional Chinese medicine, transportation, pension, and logistics, including 14 items to accelerate infrastructure connectivity, 16 items to build a modern industrial system with international competitiveness, and 80 items to build a high-quality living circle suitable for living, working and traveling. From Cantonese mooncakes, cantonese peels, traditional herbal teas, to building sustainability indexes, food cold chain emergency distribution specifications, there are now unified standards.
With these "soft connectivity", Hong Kong and Macao enterprises are clearly feeling that investment and development in mainland cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area are smoother. "For example, in the past, in the field of food for Hong Kong and Macao, the testing standards of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao were inconsistent, and the expressions were also different, and a set of standards had to be set up for food for Hong Kong and Macao, and it could only be transported from the mainland to Hong Kong and Macao in one direction. Now with a unified 'Bay Area Standard', it has changed from one-way to two-way, and circulation is more convenient. Zhang Dingkang, president of the Guangdong Institute of Standardization, said.
"The 'Bay Area Standards' will surely effectively promote the convergence of rules in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, provide strong support for improving the high-quality life of people in the Greater Bay Area, and set a precedent for promoting the integrated development of the Greater Bay Area and expanding the opening up of standards and systems." According to the relevant person in charge of the Guangdong Provincial Market Supervision Bureau, the next step will be to cooperate with relevant departments of Hong Kong and Macao to actively mobilize all parties in society to accelerate the development of more high-level "Bay Area standards", promote the interconnection of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao with standard "soft connectivity", lead the high-quality development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and promote the Greater Bay Area to become a world-class bay area and a world-class city cluster. (People's Daily overseas edition reporter Wang Lingxi)