MACAO, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- The newly-released outline development plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has immediately become a hot topic in Macao's media and society.
Macao Daily, the largest local print media, said in its commentary on Wednesday that the plan has taken the advantage of coordination of the central government and concentration of all resources to break the limits of system difference and regional distance in the Greater Bay Area.
The long-existing barriers that hindered the free flow of people, goods and capital can be solved by such an innovative framework, the daily said.
The social security networks and public service of Guangdong, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) and the Macao SAR will connect with each other to boost the development of both the economy and social welfare in the region, it added.
New China and Macao Journal said in its editorials that the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area consists of three local jurisdictions governed by three legal systems, has three taxation zones and three currencies. Such a regional cooperation and integration needs hard and innovative work.
Taichung Daily said the influence brought by the plan is not only on the economic phase, but also on the social phase. The plan said the Greater Bay Area will form a common quality living circle, meaning that more concerns and resources will go to environment protection, education, medical care and social security.
Local people can work, live and invest in the mainland with better environment and service quality, which will encourage them to go out and break the limit of Macao's small land area. Such a future will have a tight connection of systemic and cultural consensus among the cities in the region, Taichung Daily commented.
The outline development plan for the Greater Bay Area is a national strategy and an innovative practice of "one country, two systems," Macao's legislator Si Ka Lon said.
It would strengthen the area's industrial competitiveness and further expand the forefront of the country's opening-up, so that the area would form a world-class city cluster that is ecologically friendly, and suitable for living and working, he added.
Rector of the City University of Macao, Prof. Ip Kuai Peng said the enterprises, universities and institutions in the Greater Bay Area would be greatly benefited from such a plan, which aims at building a globally competitive modern industrial system, with technological innovation as a major driving force.
The plan is also helpful for the Macao SAR to pursue the appropriate diversification of its economy and upgrade its industrial structure, he said.
Macao's legislator Ho Ion Sang said the plan has explicated Macao's role in the Greater Bay Area.
The young people in Macao can have more choices, and can fully take their own advantages in the Greater Bay Area, suggested Ho, who is also vice chairman of the General Union of Macao Residents Association.
The outline development plan aims to accelerate the development of Hengqin of Zhuhai as a platform for in-depth cooperation among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, said Wong Kit Cheng, Macao's legislator and vice chairwoman of the Women's General Association of Macao.
It made a series of measures for enhancing the cooperation between Macao and Zhuhai on education, medical care, housing and elderly care, which would help improve people's livelihood in Macao, she said.
