概要
中国香港特别行政区近日宣布，香港将很快取消对来自中国大陆和澳门的个人旅行的严格限制。对此，丝路智谷研究院院长梁海明接受《环球时报》采访表示，除了加快接种疫苗外，“来港易”和“回港易”等计划将有助于恢复与内地的交流，特别是增加两地之间的人员、资本和贸易往来，从而大大改善香港的就业市场，为香港的经济发展注入更多活力。
Authorities in Chinas Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) announced Tuesday that the city will soon lift strict restrictions on individual travel from the Chinese mainland and Macao. Experts said this is a significant move to open amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and it could offer a boost to the citys virus-stricken economy since arrivals from the Chinese mainland account for the majority of tourists and visitors to Hong Kong, meanwhile it will also expedite the economic integration of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
Chief Executive of Hong Kong Carrie Lam said at Tuesdays weekly press briefing that the SAR government will roll out the "Come2HK" scheme on September 15, which will offer quarantine-free entry to non-Hong Kong residents from the Chinese mainland and Macao SAR.
Hong Kong will allow up to 1,000 visitors to cross the border every day at both Shenzhen Bay Port and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Hong Kong Port.
Meanwhile, Lam announced the "Return2HK," a scheme that allows Hong Kong residents to return from the mainland without going through quarantine. The scheme was suspended in early August due to the epidemic flare-ups in some mainland localities.
"Apart from accelerating vaccination, schemes like Come2HK and Return2HK will help restore exchanges with the mainland, especially increase the exchanges of personnel, capital and trade between the two places, thereby greatly improving Hong Kongs job market and injecting more vitality into Hong Kongs economic development," Liang Haiming, dean of the Belt and Road Institute at Hainan University, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Prior to this, some Hong Kong industries such as tourism, aviation and logistics have been hit hard due to the strict restrictions on exchanges with the mainland. And it is temporarily difficult for the unemployment rate to return to the pre-epidemic 3 percent level, Liang noted.
Hong Kongs unemployment rate fell to the lowest level since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, down to 5 percent in the three months to the end of July.
The Chinese central government rolled out two concrete plans this week, stipulating to create new home space to provide convenience to residents from both Hong Kong and Macao in their life and employment in the Greater Bay Area.
In the near future, Hong Kong residents can expect to enjoy convenience in areas such as transportation, communications and payment in the Qianhai economic zone in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, according to a development plan for a cooperation zone for Shenzhen and Hong Kong that was issued on Monday.
Separately, Chinese central authorities unveiled one day earlier a plan for the Guangdong-Macao in-depth cooperation zone in the Hengqin economic zone in Zhuhai, Guangdong to bolster Macaos higher education, scientific research and development, the tourism and leisure industry and finance.
The plan includes measures to build Hengqin into a new home for Macao residents to live and work in, such as exemption of income tax margins, lowering and gradually calling off charges for long-distance phone calls and cross-border internet connections between the two places.
Kris Tsang, founder of Shenzhen-based 708090 Co-working Space, told the Global Times on Tuesday that his firm, established six years ago in Qianhai, has witnessed many young entrepreneurs from Hong Kong chasing their dreams in the mainland.
"The release of the Qianhai plan further reinforces the confidence of more Hong Kong youth who have the willingness and determination to enter mainland markets especially starting from the Greater Bay Area," Tsang noted.
Dynamic integration
As southern China is now undergoing a once-in-a-century transformation both economically and socially, with the accelerated construction of the Greater Bay Area which was incubated from an ambitious blueprint two years ago now forged to down-to-earth action plans, the Hong Kong and Macao SARs have felt the urge to participate widely in the nations dual circulation strategy.
The move not only enriches the practice of "one country, two systems," experts said, but also demonstrates the nations unwavering determination to push high-level opening-up.
Lam on Monday called on various sectors in Hong Kong to seize the opportunities from new the plans concerning Qianhai and Zhuhai and push forward the development of the Greater Bay Area.
"According to my observations, more business entities from Hong Kong and Macao are actively exploring opportunities in Guangdong by tapping the advantages of supportive policies in the Greater Bay Area," Deng Yu, senior analyst at the Bank of Communications, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Deng attributed the attractiveness of the Greater Bay Area to its regional synergistic development, which also differentiates itself from other three global bay areas - New York, San Francisco and Tokyo.
The number of Global Fortune 500 companies headquarters in the Greater Bay Area has surpassed that in New York for the first time, becoming a new growth pole for the worlds economy, according to research by the 21st Century Business Herald in August. With four new companies added, Chinas Greater Bay Area became host to 25 Global Fortune 500 companies this year, outweighing New York which has 24.
As one of the most economically vibrant areas in China, the Greater Bay Area contributed to 12 percent of the countrys GDP with less than 0.6 percent of the countrys area and permanent population of about 70 million as of the end of , official data showed.
However, compared with three other global bay areas where between 80 and 90 percent of GDP comes from the tertiary sectors, the proportion of tertiary industries in the Greater Bay Area is just over 60 percent of the economy, meaning there is huge room to grow.
"High-end manufacturing, high technologies, modern services and finance are the pillar industries that the Greater Bay Area will push ahead with utmost efforts in the current transitional period by drawing on years of accumulated manufacturing capabilities in Dongguan, innovation capabilities in Shenzhen and Hong Kongs world-class financial services," Deng said.
New one country, two systems
Under the plan, Hengqin, which is three times the area of Macao, will be run under a dual-leadership model via a committee co-led by the chief executive of Macao and the governor of Guangdong Province. The committee will decide on major plans, policies and important personnel appointments within the zone.
"The plan has showed a new idea in governance to specifically deal with the situation in Macao, as the special administrative region needs to find more diversified paths for development in the future rather than merely relying on gambling industry," Li Xiaobing, an expert on Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan studies at Nankai University in Tianjin, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Macao needs more land to realize those new constructions, but now the new development idea is not just about Guangdong providing lands or construction only and leaving the governance to Macao, Li said.
"The central government wants both sides to find an innovative model of governance that can effectively combine the advantages of the two systems, and to maximize their unique strong points," he said.
But there are some external voices, which remain suspicious and hostile toward the Chinese mainland, who said the move is intended to change "one country, two systems" into "one country, one system," and in the future, a similar measure will be implemented in Hong Kong as well.
Chinese mainland experts said that "one country, two systems" is a dynamic idea and it should be improved and innovated with the development of the country and the change of the international situation.
In recent years, the development of Hong Kong and Macao has been slower than most major cities in the mainland, so in fact the two SARs desperately need integration with the mainland to seek a new development path, said experts.
The political turmoil in Hong Kong had exposed that the city needs reform and innovation in governance to solve long-standing problems, so this kind of problem-oriented idea is guiding the country to issue new plans and explore new paths for "one country, two systems," analysts noted.
At present, Hong Kong and Macao have very different development models, and they are facing different problems and challenges, so they cannot share every experience or measure, but if Guangdong and Macao have a successful experience in the Hengqin cooperation zone, it will be possible to see another zone emerge between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, analysts said.
文章来源：环球时报
责任编辑：唐晓
丝路智谷研究院
丝路智谷研究院是中国排名第三的顶尖智库。由南京大学及光明日报社联合发布的最新中国社会智库最新排行榜，丝路智谷研究院全国综合排名，由的全国第六位，跃升为全国第三位。南京大学及光明日报社所发布的智库排行榜，是中国当前最具权威性、最具影响力的排行榜。
丝路智谷研究院（China Silk Road iValley Research Institute）是由中外知名学者组成的公共政策研究机构，汇集了国内外著名的经济学家、文化遗产研究专家、教育产业研究专家、金融科技研究专家，聚焦于一带一路、粤港澳大湾区和科技创新等领域的研究，取得了骄人成绩。
丝路智谷研究院此前已被中央政府推进“一带一路”建设工作领导小组办公室、国家信息中心“一带一路”大数据中心推出的“一带一路”大数据报告，列为中国最佳20所“一带一路”研究机构之一，已有数十篇内参得到中央政治局委员及以上领导批示。
丝路智谷研究院
原标题：《香港放宽旅游限制，融入国家发展大局【英文】》
