Hong Kong-Greater Bay Area Plan to Nearly Triple its GDP by 2032

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The 2022 Foundation is a think tank which has released a report about the plan for Hong Kong integrate with Shenzhen and the other cities in the Great Bay Area. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region (Jing-Jin-Ji), the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), and the Pearl River Delta Greater Bay Area (PRD) will be developed by China as three world-class city clusters. These are part of China’s 19 mega city clusters infrastructure campaign to lead the next stage of urbanization and economic development. In 2017, the bay area had a combined population of about 70 million and its gross domestic product reached around 10 trillion yuan ($1.48 trillion) in 2017. By 2030, the bay area’s population will increase to a maximum of 88 million, and its economy will be in the range of $3.2 to $4.1 trillion. Per-capita income gap between satellite towns and metropolises like Guangzhou and Shenzhen will narrow from the current 43 percent to around a third. China has similar plans for the integration of the cities and regions around Shanghai and Beijing.

Yangtze River Delta



In 2016, the Yangtze River Delta generated a GDP of RMB 17.72 trillion (US$2.76 trillion) – about 20 percent of national GDP. It is responsible for one-third of China’s imports and exports. It has a population of about 150 million people – 11 percent of the country’s total.

in June 2018, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Anhui agreed a three-year action plan (2018-2020), which will provide a strategic roadmap for integration and includes nearly a dozen collaborative projects to increase the region’s competitiveness on a global scale.

A RMB 100 billion (US$16 billion) fund, The Yangtze River Delta Collaborative Advantage Fund, was launched in Shanghai.

SOURCES- 2020 Foundation, China Briefing

Written By Brian Wang

5 thoughts on “Hong Kong-Greater Bay Area Plan to Nearly Triple its GDP by 2032”

  1. I don’t think innovation and Xi’s renewed and purged “communist” party are going to mix well. He wants control AND innovation. Hard to have innovation when everyone is afraid to step out of line.

  2. I can’t see 300% growth in 13 years. That will not happen. I can see a population increase and I can see a productivity increase. But 300% growth would need an average of 10% consistent annual growth for 13 years. Not going to happen.

  3. The Red Flag River project, if carried to its logical conclusion, will produce millions of acres of productive farm land out of deserts. The COMAC C-919 and the follow on 929, will make them the third large passenger aircraft maker in the world. All of these could happen within the next decade.

    3 Xi Jing Ping reverting reforms. Xi worked his way up from the bottom and is quite aware of the power of the market. I highly doubt that they want to go back to the Mao days. I think the problem of reform has to do with trying to overcome special interest groups, which is why the central government has been on a spree to amass more and more power. In any case, I think the jury is still out on this for another few years.

    4 Corruption. The Chinese government have always had a lot of corruption. This did not seem to stop their progress for the last few decades, I doubt it will be an impediment going forward.

  4. The rise of China has been riddled with problems, Problems that have been solved by the Chinese business and government. All along the way, people have always pointed to reasons why China will collapse for one reason or another. None of it came true for the last thirty years. Let me list the issues people have pointed to now for the reason for them to fail.

    1. Demographics. In the longer term, if the trend persists, this indeed could be quite dire for them. It is hard to imagine that with the coercive power that the government has, that they would not find a way to at least blunt this problem. They have decades to do it. Even if nothing is done, you can look at examples of countries down this path for a lot longer. The Koreans, who had atrocious demographics for a long time, has not collapsed from Demographics yet, though their population is set to peak in a decade or so.
    2. Economic impact due to demographics. You have to appreciate the difference in time scale. Demographics takes decades to play out. The Chinese still has a relatively low per capita GDP, so there is still a lot of catch up that they can do. Part of that catch up is the urbanization that Brian is talking about. Living in a super connected city drastically improve ones productivity. We are talking about years for such improvement to take place.

  5. At least get the nickname right… hk/Guangzhou” is “pearl river delta”. Not the “Bay Area”, aka “Silicon Valley” in the United States…

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