Inside Out | Enough debate: Hong Kong must be part of Greater Bay’s explosive growth or risk being left behind
The challenge for Hong Kong is to begin by clarifying our unique differentiating strengths, and leverage these in ways that will benefit the whole.
Forgive my little bemusement over all the recent fuss in Hong Kong about building our links into the Greater Bay Area.
Don’t get me wrong: I think it is a great idea. But I need to ask a simple question: what do people think we in Hong Kong have been doing for the past three decades, if not building our linkages to mainland China?
Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta region have been highly interconnected for many centuries, even during British colonial rule. Quickly after mainland China began opening up in 1978 under Deng Xiaoping, thousands of Hong Kong manufacturers swarmed onto the mainland municipalities of Shenzhen and Dongguan, coming to account for a large proportion of the region’s manufacturing output, and laying the foundations for the Pearl River Delta region to become a national economic powerhouse.
When I first visited our four closest municipal neighbours in 1982, the combined population and economy of Zhongshan and Zhuhai was identical to Shenzhen and Dongguan added together.
Today, Shenzhen is one of China’s biggest economies, with a gross domestic product (GDP) of 1.95 trillion yuan (US$294 billion), and a population almost twice that of Hong Kong. Its 2016 economy expanded 9 per cent, putting Shenzhen on track to surpass Hong Kong by next year with US$350 billion in output, according to a forecast by Sanford C. Bernstein.
