A team from the Committee on Liaison with Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Overseas Chinese of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, led by its chairman Liu Cigui, visited Hong Kong and Macao from April 9 to 14. The aim of the visit was to strengthen alignment of regulations and mechanisms in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA).

During the trip, the team met separately with CPPCC National Committee vice-chairpersons Ho Hau Wah and Leung Chun-ying, as well as John Lee Ka-chiu, chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), and Sam Hou Fai, chief executive of the Macao SAR. They also met with officials from the liaison offices of the Central People's Government in both SARs and other departments of the two SAR governments.  

The team also visited patriotic community organizations as well as enterprises, financial institutions, and law firms from the mainland that are operating in Hong Kong and Macao. They met with CPPCC National Committee members based in the two SARs, experts from research institutions and think tanks, scholars, and frontline workers to learn about progress in regulatory and mechanism alignment across the GBA.

The team noted that regulatory and mechanism alignment is essential to positioning the GBA as a strategic hub for China's new development paradigm, a model of high-quality growth, and a pioneer in Chinese modernization. It is also crucial to building the GBA into a world-class bay area while helping Hong Kong and Macao integrate more deeply into the country's overall development, they said, affirming the efforts by Guangdong province and the two SARs in this regard. 

The team emphasized that efforts to develop the GBA must follow the guiding principles of the third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee. Further reform and innovation are needed to advance connection of rules, regulations and mechanisms in the region, foster greater market integration, enable the sharing of public services, facilitate cross-regional flow of production factors, and support the development of key cooperation platforms, they noted.

They also stressed the importance of leveraging Hong Kong and Macao's unique advantages to connect both domestic and international markets,  and smooth alignment with international protocols, regulatory frameworks, management practices, and standards, in order to contribute to a new model of institutional opening-up and elevate China's standard of openness.