Guangdong's party boss yesterday pledged the province's all-out support for the development of Hong Kong's economy, and said forming a Pan-Pearl River Delta region could help keep the special administrative region stable and prosperous.
'Guangdong will spare no efforts in supporting the development of Hong Kong and Macau,' said Zhang Dejiang , who is also a member of the Communist Party's Politburo.
Mr Zhang also spelled out the division of labour between Guangdong and Hong Kong in the next two decades, saying the province would become one of the world's key manufacturing bases and Hong Kong an international services hub focusing on logistics and finance.
Speaking in Hong Kong at the opening of the first Pan-Pearl River Delta Regional Co-operation and Development Forum, Mr Zhang said Guangdong's economy could not develop without support from Hong Kong. 'The prosperity and development of Hong Kong are also inseparable from rapid development in Guangdong,' the party secretary said.
Mr Zhang, who advocated the pan-delta concept in July, said creating the super-region would boost the closer economic partnership arrangements Hong Kong and Macau have signed with the mainland.
'It can help maintain the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong and Macau,' he said.
The pan-delta concept envisages developing a regional economic system involving nine provinces - Guangdong, Fujian , Jiangxi , Guizhou , Sichuan , Yunnan , Hunan , Hainan and the Guangxi autonomous region - and Hong Kong and Macau. The region has a population of 456 million and annual gross domestic product of more than US$600 billion. Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa said that figure was expected to surpass $1 trillion in 2010 and reach $2 trillion by 2020.