A symposium designed to promote collaboration among technological innovation bodies in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao was held on April 1 in Guangzhou, and explored issues surrounding the demands, bottlenecks and realization of scientific cooperation between the three places.

The symposium was part of an exchange conference on innovation and cooperation in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which was also the first matchmaking platform for regulations in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao in China under normal operations.

The conference, jointly held by Guangzhou's Nansha district and Jinan University, has been gradually establishing a mechanism for regular communications and visits between Nansha, Hong Kong and Macao. 

Pan Yuzhang, deputy director of Nansha Development Zone's administrative committee, said that Nansha has attracted abundant scientific innovation elements from Hong Kong and Macao, which will contribute to the scientific coordinated development between the three places, and also towards the construction of the Greater Bay Area's international scientific innovation center in Nansha.

"With the help of the Guangzhou government, our new campus in Nansha is now under construction 24 hours a day," said Lionel M Ni, provost of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), during the video speech.

He noted that the Guangzhou campus of HKUST is scheduled to open in September 2022 and will continue to work with Nansha towards building new models of integrated development between Guangdong and Hong Kong in areas spanning higher education, scientific research and development, as well as industry-university-research cooperation.

Feng Jie, deputy head of Nansha science and technology bureau, said that Nansha will keep optimizing its scientific innovation-related preferential policies in order to boost scientific innovation in the Greater Bay Area and the integrated development of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao.