Pan-Pearl River Delta Region opens forum
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-06-01 15:40

The Pan-Pearl River Delta Regional Cooperation and Development Forum opened in Hong Kong Tuesday morning, indicating a new era of regional cooperation among China's eight provinces, one autonomous region and two special administrative regions.

Experts said that the Pan-Pearl River Delta Region will become a high-growth region in China in the future.

Zhang Dejiang, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and secretary of Guangdong provincial committee of the CPC, Tung Chee Hwa, Chief Executive of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Ho Hau Wah, Chief Executive of Macao Special Administrative Region, and leaders from the region's provinces and autonomous region and related ministers of the central government attended the opening ceremony.

The forum, focusing "cooperative development and jointly creating future", will be held in Hong Kong, Macao and Guangzhou from Tuesday to Thursday.

The Pan-Pearl River Delta Region indicates provinces of Guangdong, Hainan, Guizhou, Jiangxi, Yunnan, Sichuan, Hunan and Fuzhou and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, as well as Hong Kong and Macao.

The land space of the eight provinces and one autonomous region account for one-fifth of Chinese mainland's total space. Its economic strength accounts for one third of the Chinese mainland's total.

The formation of the new economic cooperation system is initiated by Guangdong Province last July and received warm response from its neighboring provinces and Hong Kong and Macao. The idea has also been supported by the central government. It will be the largest ever scale of regional cooperation in China since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.