The 3rd 21st Century Maritime Silk Road China (Guangdong) International Communication Forum was held in Zhuhai on October 22nd.

KOLs from home and abroad shared ideas on how the media could enhance partnership and jointly promote the opportunities presented by the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to Belt and Road countries and regions.

Ted Sieong

Chairman of International Daily News

International Daily News has branches in Indonesia, U.S. and South America and reports in English, Chinese and Indonesian. A large proportion of our audience is overseas Chinese who love to find out more information about their hometowns.

Therefore, we have formed partnership with media in many Chinese provinces, and have been exchanging news with them. This kind of cooperation not only enables people overseas to keep a close eye on China's development, but also lowers our costs while giving us abundant new sources to report on.

As many overseas Chinese come from Guangdong, we have partnered with media in Guangdong as well as its cities such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Dongguan. In the future, we will definitely focus more on the Greater Bay Area as I found it a great opportunity for people from all over the world, consequently we are willing to partner with other cities within the Bay Area which may still be less familiar to oversea audiences.

Lam Lok Fong

Associate Professor, Department of Communication at the School of Social Science, University of Macau

We have done research in Macao last year and found that we already have sufficient reporting on the Greater Bay Area development plan and related government policies. In the meantime, our report shows Macao residents are also curious about the cultural aspects of the Area. They want to know about "whether we have anything in common" or "how we can communicate with people in the Bay Area".

When it comes to branding the Greater Bay Area globally, we should highlight our collective characteristics instead of the unique characteristic of each city. For example, we share the same culture, we have similar cuisine and most of us can speak Cantonese. We were the first area in China to open to the world so people here are open-minded and willing to seek overseas partnership.

Media can also focus more on the history of the Area and shed light into the collective memory of the residents here. How we have been though tough times in the past and how now we share in the joy of development: these are all good stories to tell to both domestic and overseas audiences.

Virginia Arcilla-Agtay

Director of Philippines News Agency

Media cooperation plays a vital role in sharing stories about the Bay Area. We're part of the Belt and Road News Alliance and we have forged partnership with some mainstream media based in Beijing.

Our partnership with China's media took off from news exchanges and team visits to each country. Now we take advantage of all platforms including social media, WeChat and Viber, getting to know each other better in a variety ways, professional relationship and fellowship.

Guangdong is only a two-hour flight from our country and we have lots of Filipinos working in Hong Kong and Macao. So if we can do it with Beijing, why can't we do it with Guangdong? The more partnership we engage in, the more we can strengthen the B&R Initiative, and the more we can share in news and success from the Guangdong-Hong Kong and Macao Bay Area.

Author| Jasmine Yin

Editors| Olivia Ouyang, Simon Haywood