The defined goals seem easily attainable. The central element of this ambitious initiative is to promote cooperation among the cities of the region to create a world-class city cluster that by 2030 would obtain a leading role in the most advanced processing industry, innovation, transport as well as logistics, trade and finance. Both documents are intended to draw decision makers’ attention to the opportunities of cooperation. The background of the initiative is the National Reform Commission’s proposal of 2009, the “Outline of the Plan for the Reform and Development of the Pearl River Delta Region (2008-2020)”, and a 2011 study, “The Action Plan for the Bay Area of the Pearl River Estuary”, published by the experts of Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong Province. In fact, the grandiose plan is not without history. Accordingly, in June 2017 the National Development and Reform Commission, which plays a key role in planning and execution, Guangdong Province, Hong Kong and Macau signed an agreement on implementation, the date of which can be regarded as the starting date of the initiative. In March 2017, the Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China, Li Keqiang confirmed that the government handles the execution of the plan as a priority. The initiative aiming at the convergence of the Pearl River Delta was first formulated in the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020). The study goes on to analyse those factors that stimulate the possible further integration of the Pearl River Delta cities and those that appear as challenges and hinder the deepening of relations. The eleven cities of the Pearl River Delta and their main data from 2016 There are of course huge differences among the cities of the region, the most developed ones are Macau (USD69,370/person), Hong Kong (USD43,742/person) and Shenzen (USD25,206/person), at the other end of the spectrum there are Jiangmen (USD8,036/person) and Zhaoqin (USD7,706/person). While the central question in the studies about China in the past few years has been whether China can avoid the trap that medium income countries fall into, the Pearl River Delta area has already reached the level of developed countries. The region’s per capita nominal gross domestic product was USD20,412 in 2016, which is approximately the same as in Saudi Arabia (USD20,029 /person). The economic power of the Pearl River Delta is best reflected by the fact that although the region’s population is 5% of that of China, it produces more than 10% of its economic output, which would in itself make the area the 12th most powerful national economy, surpassing the economic power of Russia (1283.2 billion USD). 1) The nominal gross economic output of the region was over 1,387 billion USD in 2016. The largest city of the region is Guangzhou with a population of 14 million people, followed by Shenzhen with 11.9 million, four other cities typically have populations of over five million people, while one of the most densely populated cities in the world is Macau (645 thousand people). The total population of the eleven cities is 68 million, which is almost the population of the 20th most populous country, Thailand (68.9 million). The Pearl River Delta – China’s industrial centre producing for export – comprises eleven cities: Hong Kong (Xianggang), Macao (Aomen), Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Zhongshan, Dongguan, Zhaoqing, Huizhou and Jiangmen. The present study points out the factors that facilitate the further integration of the cities of the Pearl River Delta, and also the factors that pose challenges to be addressed. The Chinese government hopes that the cities in the region will develop into an integrated urban region in the near future that can turn into the centre of global economy. ![]() In the past decades the Pearl River Delta has become the centre of the world’s processing industry.
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