China's State Council recently released a plan to boost the development of the Chinese mainland part of a cooperation zone between the southern tech hub Shenzhen and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

This will be the fourth cooperation zone in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), and the first to focus on sci-tech innovation, according to a press conference Tuesday. 

On Sept. 5, 2023, the State Council Information Office holds a press conference in Beijing to brief the media about the plan for the Shenzhen park of the Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Zone. [Photo by Zhao Yifan/China SCIO]

Guo Lanfeng, an official of the National Development and Reform Commission, said the Hetao zone will play a significant role in facilitating collaborative innovation and supporting the construction of the GBA international sci-tech innovation center.

Sitting on the border between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, the zone comprises a 3.02 square- kilometer park in Shenzhen, and a 0.87-square-kilometer park in Hong Kong. The zone will leverage Shenzhen's thriving high-tech industries and booming entrepreneurship and Hong Kong's free trade port policy and highly sophisticated professional services, according to the plan.

The Shenzhen park will put into practice international sci-tech innovation management rules, attract global leading innovation resources, and step up efforts to build infrastructure and a public services platform. In particular, it will nurture new growth drives, focusing on new-generation information technology, biomedicine, artificial general intelligence, and the digital economy, said Qin Weizhong, mayor of Shenzhen. 

Lin Xin, secretary-general of the Ministry of Science and Technology, said the ministry will support Shenzhen and Hong Kong to carry out in-depth cooperation in sci-tech projects, talent cultivation, business incubation, sci-tech financing, as well as international technology transfer. 

So far, the Shenzhen park has already attracted over 3,000 researchers from home and abroad; a quantum science center and 10 R&D platforms from five top Hong Kong universities have been established, according to Qin.