After the "development of the Bay Area economy" was first proposed in the Shenzhen Municipal Government Work Report in 2014, at the two sessions held in various cities in the Pearl River Delta this year, the integration or docking of the "Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area" was written into the government work reports of Foshan, Zhaoqing, Jiangmen, Dongguan, Zhuhai and other places.

This means that building the Bay Area economy will become an important development strategy for the Pearl River Delta region in the next stage. As the first "Bay Area" clearly defined by the state, the Pearl River Delta Bay Area also bears the important task of exploring the way for the development of the Bay Area economy in some coastal areas across the country.

Pearl River Delta "Bay Area"

Internationally, the term "Bay Area" is mostly used to describe a cluster of ports and towns composed of many seaports and towns distributed around coastal ports, and the resulting economic effects are called "Bay Area Economy".

The National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Notice on Accelerating the Preparation of Urban Agglomeration Planning" last month, proposing that in 2017, it is planned to start the planning of inter-provincial urban agglomerations such as the Pearl River Delta Bay Area, the West Bank of the Strait, the Guanzhong Plain, Lanzhou-Xining, and Hubao Eyu.

The "Pearl River Delta" or "Pearl River Delta region" is described as the "Pearl River Delta Bay Area", which appears for the first time in national documents. The official in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission said that the "Pearl River Delta Bay Area" urban agglomeration will be planned by the nine cities in the Pearl River Delta and Hong Kong and Macau as a whole, led by the National Development and Reform Commission, jointly compiled with Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao regions, and finally approved by the State Council.

In fact, the concept of the "Bay Area" is not the first time it has been proposed. Some cities with developed ports in our country, such as Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Dongguan, Taizhou, etc., have already joined the ranks of developing the Bay Area economy.

In an interview with reporters, Hu Gang, a professor at Jinan University and president of the South China Urban Research Association, believes that the formulation of the NDRC document is in line with the general development strategy of high-tech in our country, and will drive the transformation and upgrading of the national economy. "Unlike in the past, the development of high-tech depends on high-tech talents, and talents like to gather in places with good climate and environmental conditions. Such places are the Bay Area. Just like the San Francisco Bay Area, because the pleasant climate gathers high-tech talents, the rapid development of science and technology has attracted the attention of the world, and it has also attracted the attention of China."

The total GDP exceeds that of Spain

Not only the Pearl River Delta, but also the Bohai Bay, Hangzhou Bay, Jiaozhou Bay, Beibu Bay and many other bay areas in our country. Among them, the Bohai Rim Bay Area with Beijing and Tianjin as the "dual core" is currently developing better, and the Hangzhou Bay Area and the Pearl River Delta Bay Area with Shanghai as the core.

"Relatively speaking, the urban population density of the Pearl River Delta Bay Area is high, and the 11 cities included have all entered a relatively mature stage of development. Moreover, the technological development elements of the Pearl River Delta are more comprehensive - there are both strong high-tech, as well as traditional manufacturing and service industries," Hu Gang analyzed.

Peng Peng, vice president of the Guangdong Provincial System Reform Research Association and a senior researcher at the Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences, believes that because Hong Kong, Macao, the Pearl River Delta Bay Area and the international connection are more convenient, this is also its advantage.

As the first national-level Bay Area to be recognized by the world's second largest economy, the Pearl River Delta Bay Area is expected to be a world-class Bay Area.

The above-mentioned person in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission mentioned that from the perspective of the spatial pattern of urban agglomeration development in various countries in the world, the coastal bay area urban agglomeration is the best and most competitive urban agglomeration with the best development conditions. The Pearl River Delta Bay Area urban agglomeration has the most international characteristics. He believes that the Pearl River Delta Bay Area will be the most developed urban agglomeration area in the world in the future, and it will also be the most innovative and open urban agglomeration area.

The reporter combed through the data of local statistical offices and the international monetary fund and found that from 2011 to 2015, the regional GDP of the Pearl River Delta Bay Area increased year by year, from 6.24 trillion yuan in 2011 to 8.44 trillion yuan, about 1.22 trillion US dollars. This value is comparable to the GDP of Australia, the 13th largest economy in 2015, and surpasses Spain, which ranks 14th, 23.80 billion US dollars, and Russia, which ranks 12th, 100 billion US dollars.

Attention should be paid to the "livability" of the Bay Area

Compared with the three world-class bay areas, the industry in the Pearl River Delta Bay Area has problems of single structure and insufficient scientific research capabilities. Hu Gang said that the industrial structure of the Pearl River Delta Bay Area is still labor-intensive, with traditional manufacturing accounting for the majority. At the same time, there is still a certain gap in high-tech industries.

"Shenzhen's high-tech is mainly applied technology, and its original technology and research and development capabilities are still far behind Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay Area. The scientific research, innovation and entrepreneurship environment in the entire Pearl River Delta Bay Area also needs to be improved. However, the Pearl River Delta Bay Area has a relatively clear division of industry." Hu Gang said.

On the other hand, in the process of building the economy of the Bay Area, integration is both the focus and the difficulty. The "Bay Area" is more blurred than the boundaries between "regional" cities, and more emphasis is placed on integrated development, such as infrastructure interconnection, equal public services, and comparable consumption levels.

In addition, as the third largest label of the Bay Area, the Pearl River Delta Bay Area is not "livable" enough. Li Zhiming, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference of Guangdong Province, told reporters that all government decisions should be centered on "people" and start from the needs of residents, so that the direction can not be wrong.