Jointly hosted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), the symposium on Belt and Road and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Economic Construction was held at CUHK on July 26. CASS Vice-president Cai Fang and CUHK Vice-president Zhang Miaoqing represented respective sponsors to deliver speeches at the conference.

Participating experts deemed that the “Belt and Road” initiative and the Greater Bay Area have complementary advantages and relatively good strategic docking conditions. As an important strategic supporting area of the “Belt & Road” initiative, the Greater Bay Area will gather the key resources of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao to form a strong cooperative development force. A high-quality investment environment should be created to achieve high-level openness and high-quality development, thus building it into an international great bay area with global influence and competitiveness, they said.

More than 100 delegates attended the symposium, who were from such organizations as CASS, the Development Research Center of the State Council, CUHK, Peking University, Renmin University of China and Our Hong Kong Foundation. They held deep discussion on four issues: the strategic docking between the Belt and Road and the Greater Bay Area, the open development of the Greater Bay Area under the “Belt & Road” initiative, paths and policies of the area’s integrating development, and institutional innovation in the integration of the area’s development under the “One Country, Two Systems” framework.