To lead Greater Bay Area integration, Hong Kong can look to San Francisco

Hong Kong’s first-ever five-year plan for economic and social development (2026-2030) is out for public consultation. The section on the “development of regional cooperation” stands out for its call to “advance the development of key cooperation platforms, and strengthen collaboration with other areas, provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in the mainland”.

Similarly, Shenzhen has set out an agenda for the high-level development of major cooperation platforms in its 15th five-year plan to deepen practical cooperation with Hong Kong and Macau. Nationally, China’s 15th five-year plan also underscores the advancing of the Greater Bay Area by enhancing the alignment of rules, standards and institutional frameworks.

Cooperation in the Greater Bay Area remains constrained by different legal, regulatory and governance systems under the “one country, two systems” framework. Even when Hong Kong’s and Shenzhen’s policy documents point in the same direction, businesses, researchers and public agencies still face long-standing friction in areas such as cross-border data sharing, funding and regulatory compliance.

If Hong Kong is to, as its proposed five-year plan says, “make good use of key cooperation platforms”, those platforms must go beyond technical aspects and offer a stable institutional framework that can bridge rules, set common standards and provide governance structures capable of handling disputes, aligning expectations and sustaining cooperation.