News Source: Macao Daily
Jie Wu, Associate Professor of University of Macau, suggested that Macau should precisely position itself in the Bay Area development, integrate, even arbitrage resources in the Area, and intensify the fusion between Macau and Hengqin FTA (Free Trade Zone).
Precisely Position Macau in the Bay Area
He contended that Macau should precisely position its role in the Bay Area to break its dilemma of sole industrial structure. On one hand, Macau has limited competitive advantages against other cities (e.g., Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou) in terms of important factors such as economic growth, natural resources, innovation, technology, talents etc. On the other hand, Macau possesses unique characteristics in the Bay Area. To capture the opportunity emerging in the development of the Bay Area, the Macau youth can consider the leisure entertainment and tourism for their future opportunities. Moreover, they may base on the Hengqin Island to develop ‘one journey, multiple stops’ service. Additionally, they can combine the ‘One Belt One Road’ strategy to develop international trade with Portuguese speaking countries.
Integrate and arbitrate the resources in the Bay Area
In participating in developing the Bay Area, Macau needs to put more emphasis on integrating and arbitrating the resources in the Bay Area. Macau, for example, can attract advanced managements and skills in Hong Kong’s financial service and high-level technologies and talents in Shenzhen’s to Macao and Hengqin island. With the development of Hong Kong, Zhuhai, Macao Bridge and Shenzhen-Zhonghuan highway, the ‘one hour living circle’ is established, this strategy becomes feasible. Moreover, the existing difference between extremely high living costs, stress and housing price in the Eastern Bay and relatively low ones offers Macau a rare good opportunity to arbitrage the resources from the Eastern Bay to develop the West Bank of the Pearl River. Worth noting, the logistics of the Western Bay Area is less developed than that of the Eastern Bay Area, Macao puts more resources to develop a logistics hub, based on the Hengqin island, which is likely to bridge the resource exchanges from the Eastern Bank to the Western Bank.
Intensify the fusion between Macao and Hengqin FTA
To grasp and enlarge these opportunities, the Macao government should intensity the fusion between Macao and Hengqin FTZ. So far the barrier for local Macau people to travel to work and live in Hengqin FTZ is still a huge obstacle. For example, the minimum required capital for a local person to apply for driving private car to Hengqi FTA is still enormously high. Therefore, the Macao government should develop innovative policies that facilitate and enhance the fusion between Macao and Hengqin FTZ—the biggest good news for Macao local entrepreneurial in specialty and for the long-term sustainability of Macao Economy.
For details, please refer to Chinese version.
