New office key for HK's role in GBA

The Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau was quoted by local media as saying on Wednesday that a Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Development Office will be established soon to handle all Bay Area-related matters concerning Hong Kong. The SAR government will appoint a commissioner to head the office. Although the special administrative region government or Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has yet to officially announce this decision, it is safe to say the Bay Area development office is not only an important step in the right direction but also crucial to Hong Kong's role in the Bay Area city cluster development in the years to come.

The Bay Area city cluster is sometimes referred to as a massive project included in the country's development strategy for the next 20-30 years and hopefully beyond. It consists of nine cities in the Pearl River Delta region of Guangdong province - the provincial capital of Guangzhou, economic powerhouse and innovation and technology hotbed that is Shenzhen, seven smaller cities known collectively as the "world's factory", and of course the two special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao. Since it will not become new administrative unit in the country, or Guangdong for that matter, its success as an economic bastion made of three regional economies in their own right will rely heavily on their ability and willingness to cooperate as seamlessly as possible.

As the central government authorities already decided, none of the three participating regions of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao will be named the leader of the city cluster that will be barking orders at the other two. Instead they are expected and encouraged to put their minds together and work out an efficient way to cooperate and coordinate in making this strategic project a leading bay area not only in China but also in the world, which they will all be extremely proud of as equal partners. That said, the three do have their own strengths and should take full advantage of them by all means, provided they are in good conscience and fair. To do so they need a rulebook of some kind that they all follow, so that the best interest of the three communities can be well served without conflicts with their own laws or one another's. If successful they will be remembered as system innovators who elevated "one country, two systems" to a new level.

There is no doubt a great deal of discussions, consultations and probably negotiations are required in addition to extensive joint fact-finding trips and prospective brainstorming in the coming months if not years. That is why the Bay Area development office is an absolute must to ensure Hong Kong's role in the making of an economic marvel of the century, so to speak. However, whether it will assume a leading role depends on how willing Hong Kong is to apply its strength in finance, high-end services, healthcare, education and inno-tech, to name just a few. All of these depend on the enormous market that is the mainland, beginning with Guangdong. In that sense Hong Kong can definitely take the lead in writing a "script" or rulebook for the "play" of three besides their own existing rules.