Xia Baolong’s Jiangmen Visit Puts Focus on Industrial Depth
HK01 · 1 SOURCESabout 1 hour ago2 MIN
Summary
Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office of the State Council and the Central Leading Group office on Hong Kong and Macau affairs, visited Jiangmen on September 9 and attended a special meeting on the Hengqin Guangdong-Macau In-Depth Cooperation Zone on September 10, in a two-day Greater Bay Area research trip that has attracted attention. The HK01 opinion piece says the Hengqin meeting was aimed at policy and institutional coordination, while the Jiangmen visit examined whether the city could provide industrial space and real-economy support for Hong Kong and Macau as they connect with the national 15th Five-Year Plan
Key Points
- The commentary says recent Greater Bay Area cooperation has often centered on Qianhai, Hengqin and Hetao as institutional innovation platforms linking Hong Kong and Macau with the mainland
- It argues Jiangmen offers the “hard” industrial carrying capacity to complement such “soft” policy integration, giving Hong Kong and Macau room for capital, technology and brands to land
- Four stops were highlighted: Guanghai Bay in Taishan, the neutrino experiment station, Lee Kum Kee’s Xinhui factory, and CRRC’s Guangdong base
- The article says Jiangmen’s development intensity is below 6% and describes it as the only city on the west bank of the Pearl River Estuary with large-scale industrial space
- Guangdong’s 15th Five-Year Plan positioning for Jiangmen includes a major Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau cooperation platform on the Pearl River’s west bank and a hub linking the Pearl River Delta with western Guangdong and southwest China
Why It Matters
For Hong Kong readers, the argument is that future integration with national planning may depend not only on rule alignment in core zones, but also on access to lower-cost industrial land and manufacturing capacity in western Pearl River Delta cities. The commentary presents Jiangmen as a possible base for models such as “Hong Kong and Macau headquarters plus Jiangmen production” and “Hong Kong and Macau research plus Jiangmen manufacturing.”