At present, many people from Macao live and work in Zhongshan. For their benefit, the Office of the Uniao Geral das Associacoes dos Moradores de Macau (the Uniao) has been set up in Zhongshan. It's the first time for a Macao NGO to set up an office in mainland China and is an innovative social services partnership for cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. (GBA)

Liang Weihua. [Photo by Zhang Chuanyong]

These remarks were delivered by Liang Weihua, Director-General of the Development and Reform Bureau of Zhongshan Municipal Government, Director of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Affairs Office of the Zhongshan Municipal Government, in an exclusive interview with Southcn.com and Newsgd.com, sharing her opinion that Zhongshan will make every effort to promote the construction of the GBA and become a world-class city.

Utilising advantages to be part of the GBA's development

The urban area of Zhongshan. [Photo by Ye Zhiwen]

As an important hub city in the GBA, Zhongshan enjoys many advantages in terms of its location, industrial foundation, talent, distinctive culture and environment. Zhongshan will make use of all of these advantages to foster both its own and the GBA's development.

Liang attached great importance to the Bay Area layout. She proposed that the city should accelerate the growth of the eastern coastal area to establish a modern coastal city in the GBA.

It is critical for Zhongshan to enhance infrastructure connectivity in order to create an significant transport hub in the western GBA. Meanwhile, the city will also develop its rail transit, including construction of the Shenzhen-Maoming Railway, the Nansha Port Railway, and other high-speed railways as well as subways.

Furthermore, the city is working on the international cooperation and innovation zone based on the collaboration with Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macao, as well as promoting the Sci-Tech innovation corridor and the transformation of scientific and technological achievements.

Promoting international cooperation in biomedical Sci-Tech

The Zhongshan Bio-medicine Industrial Forum of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. [Photo by Ye Zhiwen]

According to Liang, Zhongshan is preparing for long-term development of the innovation zone, aiming to pilot health care reform and biomedical innovation and approval.

The city has taken some key actions to develop the innovation zone, including signing a cooperation framework agreement with Macao, submitting applications for the import of drugs, beginning the construction of medical academies and laboratories, and initiating the GBA medical innovation alliance.

Based on this progress, the city will continue the combination of open cooperation and industrial and service innovation striving to achieve a health & medicine industry scale of 300 billion yuan by 2025.

As regards the innovation and entrepreneurship of Hong Kong and Macao young professionals, Zhongshan has built a platform called "1+N", which now covers an area of 8,000 square meters and is still under construction. The "1+N" is a business incubation space especially for these individuals, and has provided services for 22 Hong Kong and Macao youth teams over the past two years. (from Newsgd.com)