CE: HK’s role in GBA to include education
Hong Kong will put more emphasis on education and healthcare as part of its role in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area plan, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said on Thursday.
She made the comments at the establishment ceremony of Harmonia College on the Shenzhen campus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
The campus started construction in 2012, which Lam also witnessed, and so far it has enrolled more than 3,400 students from the world.
The success of the university in Shenzhen marks the “limitless possibilities” of cooperation between Guangdong and Hong Kong, Lam said. The GBA cooperation plan, Lam believes, will take such cooperation to a new level.
“We hope more of our advantageous industries could come to the GBA, including education and healthcare,” she noted.
Such cooperation could resolve Hong Kong’s problem of limited land and labor resources. It would also help mainland cities open up new industries and upgrade professional services, Lam said.
Taking into consideration local emerging industries, CUHK Shenzhen has set up several research institutes for robotics and intelligent manufacture, big data and innovative medicine.
Also attending the event, Wang Weizhong, Party chief of Shenzhen, agreed with Lam’s comments. He said education was a strategic focus of Guangdong-Hong Kong cooperation; medical care is also a key area where Shenzhen could learn from Hong Kong.
We hope more of our advantageous industries could come to the GBA, including education and healthcare.” Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor
The southern mainland city will bring in top international education management teams, professors and academics in the near future, Wang stressed.
Shenzhen’s economy has been booming rapidly; its GDP surpassed that of Hong Kong and Guangzhou last year. However, education and medical care industries are seen its weakness.
On average, 1,000 people in Shenzhen only have access to 3.6 hospital beds — lower than the national average.
It has 13 colleges and universities and plans to build seven more by the end of 2025, doubling the number of student enrollments to 200,000.
Shenzhen has been seeking solutions through importing overseas resources. This includes setting up the Shenzhen MSU-BIT University, the first cooperative university between China and Russia, and the University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital.
In addition, major universities in the special administrative region, including the HKU, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and City University of Hong Kong, have all set up branches and institutions in Shenzhen.