Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore makes a video speech at the forum. Photo: Courtesy of Tencent

 
Four city clusters including the Yangtze River Delta and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area are home to nearly 5,000 specialized and sophisticated enterprises that produce new and unique products, accounting for half this category of companies nationwide, a report released at a recent forum held in Shenzhen showed.

The report, released by the China Development Institute which is based in Shenzhen, shows that China's major urban agglomerations, represented by the Greater Bay Area, are becoming a powerful force in promoting technology and industry sharing and innovation. 

The report added that more than 60 percent of the lighthouse factories based on the Chinese mainland are concentrated across the four clusters. 

The report came amid the background of the connectivity in the Greater Bay Area being continuously improved, and the region aiming to develop new industries to promote the transformation and upgrade of high-quality economic development.

As one of the world's wealthiest city clusters, the Greater Bay Area's GDP in 2021 was equal to 12.6 trillion yuan ($1.81 trillion), up 2.4 trillion yuan from 2017 levels, according to Guangdong Province's Development and Reform Commission.

As a major component of national science and technology infrastructure, the China Spallation Neutron Source, which is located in Dongguan, has completed eight rounds of user experiments with a total of more than 800 subjects since its opening to the outside world in 2018, and has accumulated more than 4,000 registered users worldwide. It has become one of the pillars supporting the Greater Bay Area in promoting global scientific research and technological innovation.

China and many other Asian countries need to increase investment in science and technology, become more self-reliant, and carry out technological innovation in the region to the fullest extent possible, Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore said in a video speech delivered at the forum.

In the eyes of Mahbubani, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is the region with the most innovative potential in Asia.

The construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is a model of high-quality development in the new era of China, a national strategy to promote the formation of a new pattern of comprehensive opening up, and a new practice to promote the development of "one country, two systems" in the new era,  Leung Chun-ying, vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, told the forum.

The report said that a source of innovative strength in the Greater Bay Area is the frequent flow among the cities, which is supported by innovation platforms of enterprises such as Huawei, Tencent Digital Ecosystem, and GAC Zhilian.

Tencent, one of the organizers of the forum said that it will focus on the major needs and important directions of national innovation and development, and create more specialized and sophisticated enterprises for more sustainable social value.