Tung Chee Hwa, Chief Executive of the HKSAR

Promote regional coop., create bright future together

The Pan-PRD region, with large cooperation prospective as well as a mutually beneficial and complementary cooperative relationship among its members, is to see a bright future with better and faster development, says Mr. Tung Chee Hwa, Chief Executive of the HKSAR at his forum speech this afternoon (June 1st).

The PPRD region has a number of economic advantages such as all-functional elements of production, abundant resources of land, labor as well as natural resources, and other elements as capital, technology and intellectuals, large domestic market and international network as well as the diversified economic structures of the provinces and regions, he says.

Last year, the GDP of Pan-PRD reaches 630 billion USD, an annual growth of 40%. It is estimated to exceed 1000 billion USD in the year 2010 and 2000 billion USD in 2020, over the current production level of the UK, he says.

The Pan-PRD is actually the expansion and development of the Greater PRD economic region including Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, he says, Guangdong, as the creator of the PPRD region, takes a leading role in the regional cooperation.

He also points out three directions in the promotion of the PPRD regional cooperation, including:
1. Building an integrated market system based on the principle of "One Country, Two Systems";
2. Further promoting the level of opening-up to have regional enterprises better participating into the international competition and cooperation.
3. Promoting the coordinated regional economic development to form a situation of mutual benefit and multi-winning.

Hong Kong has long been the largest foreign investor for the nine mainland provinces/regions, he says, until 2003, about 120 thousand firms invest in the nine provinces, with an actual investment of some 150 billion USD, almost half of their foreign investment. With the implementation of CEPA, a brighter cooperation future can be seen between Hong Kong and other PPRD provinces and regions.

Under the new circumstances, the cooperation between Hong Kong and other provinces and regions needs to be done with new directions, new forms as well as in new fields.

The service industry, with finance, logistics, tourism and professional services as the pillar industry, accounts for 87% of the GDP of Hong Kong's economy; while it is also a fast developing industry in other provinces and regions. Therefore, it would be particularly important for Hong Kong and other mainland provinces to further enlarge the cooperation in the field.

The start-up of PPRD regional cooperation will also need large-scale infrastructure construction, including electricity, telecommunication and transportation, says Mr. Tung. "Investment and promotion activities will also help," he adds.

To better promote the PPRD regional cooperation, a new mechanism can be established to strengthen communication and coordination, he says, the cooperation should also be all-round, bi-direction and opening.

Editor: Catherine