Before the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge opened, a trip from Zhuhai to Hong Kong meant either taking the ferry for more than an hour or driving around the waters separating the two cities for three to four hours. That journey can now be made in about 45 minutes.
For Wang Jie, director of the Zhuhai Municipal Trade Service Center, the world’s longest cross-sea bridge, which is often described as “the project of the century”, is less of an engineering marvel and more of what she calls “a link woven into everyday life”.
Fresh produce from western parts of Guangdong province can now reach supermarkets in Hong Kong within half a day, while residents of Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions can drive to Zhuhai in Guangdong to buy flowers for Spring Festival, to visit relatives, or to simply spend a day in the mainland city and see how it has changed.
Wang recalled what one of her friends from Hong Kong told her: “Going to Zhuhai used to feel like a business trip. Now it feels like just going out.”
The bridge has changed a lot more than just reducing travel time. It has linked logistics, customs clearance and consumption more closely with everyday needs, making the integration of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area seem less like a planning term and more like a daily reality for residents and businesses.
Covering nine cities in Guangdong, as well as the Hong Kong and Macao SARs, the Greater Bay Area is one of China’s most open and economically vibrant regions. It is home to more than 87 million people and generates about one-ninth of the country’s economic output on less than 0.6 percent of its land area.
In 2025, the Greater Bay Area’s economic output topped $2 trillion, exceeding those of the New York and San Francisco bay areas and roughly matching the Tokyo Bay Area, placing it among the world’s leading bay area economies.
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The Greater Bay Area also offers a window on China’s broader push for coordinated regional development. For a country of China’s size and diversity, narrowing gaps between regions and improving the balance of development have long been a major challenge.
President Xi Jinping has made coordinated regional development a key approach to addressing those challenges. He has given sustained attention to the development of the Greater Bay Area from an overall and long-term perspective. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, he has made nine inspection tours to the region.
During an inspection tour in Guangdong in April 2023, Xi said the Greater Bay Area holds strategic importance in the country’s new development paradigm. He said the area must be developed as a strategic fulcrum of the new development pattern, a demonstration zone of high-quality development and a pioneer of Chinese modernization.
When inspecting Guangdong in November last year, Xi also urged efforts to deepen cooperation among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, strengthen collaboration in sci-tech innovation and infrastructure connectivity, and promote “soft connectivity” of rules and mechanisms.
He said that Guangdong should play its main and leading role, fully mobilize the enthusiasm, initiative and creativity of all parties, and better leverage the strengths of enterprises, professional service institutions, universities, research institutes and talent in different fields.
The emphasis on innovation was reinforced one month later at the 2025 Central Economic Work Conference, which called for developing three international sci-tech innovation centers, namely the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta region and the Greater Bay Area.
These policy priorities have reflected in the region’s move from physical connectivity toward closer alignment of rules and innovation resources.
A total of 270 Greater Bay Area standards have been issued, helping align practices across the region, while the number of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao joint laboratories has increased to 33. Industry reports also describe the region as one of China’s leading clusters for high-growth technology companies.
After visiting Guangdong’s Shenzhen — once a small fishing village and now a modern international metropolis — in late April, former prime minister of Moldova Ion Chicu said the city offered him a close-up view of China’s reform, opening-up and innovation.
China is becoming a trendsetter in high technology and the world is watching its development closely, Chicu said, adding that what he saw in Shenzhen was not just technology for tomorrow, but a glimpse of a more distant future.
He noted that Chinese brands, such as Huawei, Xiaomi and BYD, are widely known in Moldova, where Chinese-made cars are popular. Chinese medical equipment has also entered professional settings in his country, he said, adding that his wife, a doctor, uses such equipment for her diagnostic work.
Behind China’s technological progress, Chicu said, are long-term investment, national vision and a strong orientation toward the future. China’s experience, discipline and forward-looking approach are worth learning from, he said.
The role of Shenzhen, which forms a frontier of China’s reform and opening-up and a core part of the Greater Bay Area, is not limited to technology. The 33rd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders’ Meeting will be held in the city in November this year, placing it at the center of Asia-Pacific economic diplomacy.
Marta Martin, deputy head of international relations at the Communist Party of Spain and vice-president of the Party of the European Left, said the Greater Bay Area should not be seen simply as Asia’s Silicon Valley.
The Silicon Valley developed under a completely different institutional environment, Martin said, and its gains, in many cases, have benefited only a limited number of people. By contrast, the Greater Bay Area’s development has not only lifted the region as a whole, but also offers experience for coordinated development in other parts of China, she added.
This reflects an important feature of China’s governance and development experience, Martin said, noting that the nation not only focuses on major cities, but also on areas outside the main urban centers, and that it does not pursue growth for its own sake, but places people’s well-being at the center.
Speaking about the region’s innovation and opening-up policies, Martin said that China is showing a path to modernization based on respect and mutual benefit. At a time when some countries are turning to unilateralism and protectionism, China’s emphasis on openness, cooperation, mutual respect and mutual benefit offers a contrast and carries lessons for Spain and the rest of Europe, she said.
What distinguishes the Greater Bay Area from other major bay areas is its institutional complexity — three customs territories, three currencies and three legal systems.
For Davidson I. Ishmael, minister of state in the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Barbados, that complexity is precisely what makes the Greater Bay Area relevant to other regions seeking deeper integration.
The Greater Bay Area brings different places together while allowing them to develop strengths in key areas such as technology, research and development, and manufacturing, Davidson said, adding that it reflects an overall strategy and long-term vision, and shows that regional cooperation can work when it is backed by sustained effort and strategic focus.
Davidson pointed to the Caribbean as an example. Small island states have limited room for development when they act alone, he said, but through the Caribbean Community they can integrate more closely and operate as a more productive and efficient region.
Abdulla Siyaz, minister of state for economic development and trade, Maldives, noted that the Greater Bay Area forms a part of a broader story of Chinese modernization.
China was once a poor country, but it achieved rapid development in decades, he said, adding that for many developing countries, China’s experience shows that rapid progress is possible when long-term planning, effective governance and sustained innovation are brought together.
