Greater Bay Area Development Creates New Opportunities for Asia-Pacific

Par He Linping, People's Daily

On Aug. 26, a truck carrying more than 10,000 cross-border e-commerce export shipments set off after a Guangdong-Macao "cross-border one-lock" customs seal was secured with a crisp click at the Nam Kwong (Hengqin) Logistics Center in the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin, Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong province. The truck smoothly passed through the joint one-stop lane at Hengqin Port, cleared customs quickly, and headed straight to Macao International Airport, just 13 kilometers away, before flying onward to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

This marked the first shipment and inaugural flight under a pilot program that pre-positions air cargo palletizing services at Macao International Airport's Hengqin cargo terminal. For the first time, the airport's services have been substantially extended to the mainland.

This development represents more than just an improvement in logistics efficiency; it marks an upgrade in urban functions. With strengthened logistics links between the two locations, "Macao + Hengqin" has gained a new foothold for integrating into the Asia-Pacific and connecting with global markets.

The Asia-Pacific is a major engine of global economic growth, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is one of China's most open and economically dynamic regions.

Historically, the area has been a bustling hub of maritime trade along the Maritime Silk Road. Today, Hong Kong and Macao serve as gateways and "super connectors" that facilitate trade and people-to-people exchanges with Asia-Pacific economies. Meanwhile, the three places continue to deepen the alignment of rules and coordination of mechanisms, enabling the Greater Bay Area to participate more closely in regional cooperation and development as an integrated whole.

"Leveraging its unique strengths, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is becoming an important engine for advancing regional cooperation in the Asia-Pacific," said Li Xiaoying, associate dean at the Institute of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Development Studies, Sun Yat-sen University.

Take Guangdong, for example. In 2025, its total foreign trade reached 9.49 trillion yuan (about $1.41 trillion), with ASEAN as its largest trading partner. Trade with emerging markets such as the five Central Asian countries and the Middle East grew by 23.6 percent and 8.5 percent, respectively.

The Greater Bay Area has become increasingly attractive to foreign investors. In 2025, actual foreign investment in the nine Pearl River Delta cities reached 105.73 billion yuan, up 14.6 percent. Investment from developed Asia-Pacific economies such as the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore continued to flow into the region, injecting fresh momentum into high-quality development while creating new business opportunities.

Recently, the 2026 Hong Kong International Tea Fair was held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, filling the venue with the aroma of tea and a lively atmosphere. The Shenzhen International Business e-Station brought together seven quality tea companies from the mainland as an exhibition group, under a model designed to help them jointly explore global markets. The group showcased their products at the fair.

On the first day alone, the companies established contacts with dozens of buyers from Southeast Asia and other markets. As an integrated online and offline platform providing comprehensive services for companies going global, the center leverages Hong Kong and Macao as links to international markets and taps global resources. Since its launch in July 2024, it has served more than 2,000 companies expanding overseas and facilitated 224 overseas investment projects.

The Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou innovation cluster in the Greater Bay Area is the world's largest. Its full-chain innovation ecosystem, spanning basic research, technological breakthroughs, commercialization of research findings, technology finance and talent support, is powered by flexible institutions and a vibrant innovation environment. It is accelerating the transformation of research results from bookshelves to store shelves, turning them into new quality productive forces.

At Guangzhou Frontop Digital Creative Technology Co., Ltd., representatives from APEC economies lingered in the VR (virtual reality) experience zone, expressing interest in leveraging the Greater Bay Area's digital technologies to showcase their countries' tourism resources to the world. In Dongguan, the impressive results of intelligent transformation in traditional manufacturing are opening up broad new possibilities for the development of small and medium-sized enterprises across the Asia-Pacific.

"Many Asia-Pacific economies are currently facing common challenges, including industrial upgrading, the green transition and strengthening innovation capabilities. By closely linking production lines, research institutes, technology companies, logistics networks and platforms for opening up, the Greater Bay Area can help accelerate the application of new technologies and strengthen the region's overall competitiveness," said Kanokwan Kerdplanant, chief correspondent at Bangkok Business News.