Name: 大灣區。香港、澳門和中國大陸的橋樑｜CNBC報道 (The Greater Bay Area: Bridging Hong Kong, Macau and Mainland China | CNBC Reports)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T08:07:04.000Z
Duration: 15 min 32 s
Description: 【看影片學英語】數萬部 YouTube 影片，搭配英漢字典即點即查，輕鬆掌握單字發音與用法，長久累積看電影不必再看字幕。

That's me onstage receiving a peck from a Beluga whale inside one of China's largest amusement parks.

I'm taking a journey on boats, trains and buses through parts of China's Pearl River Delta.

Located in the southern part of China, it's home to cities like Hong Kong and Macau,

and increasingly becoming connected thanks to new infrastructure.

It's the longest sea-crossing bridge in the world.

Then there's a new high-speed train, which seamlessly connects Hong Kong to some of China's megacities.

It's all part of a new effort by the Chinese government to bring the region together

into a network known as The Greater Bay Area.

It hopes to eventually rival the likes of economic hubs like the New York, Tokyo and San Francisco Bay areas.

What does this mean for businesses like this amusement park?

I'm traveling from Hong Kong, to Macau to Zhuhai

meeting people hoping to profit from the Greater Bay Area.

Centered around the coast of Southern China, it's home to 11 cities and more than 65 million people.

That's more than Canada and Australia's populations combined.

The combined GDP of the Greater Bay area is $1.5 trillion, similar to the economy of South Korea.

Which makes sense if you consider the area is already home to some of China's biggest tech companies,

like Huawei, Tencent and drone-maker DJI.

As well as one of the world's most powerful financial centers, Hong Kong.

This is the Hong Kong side of what's now the longest sea-crossing bridge in the world.

The idea's been in the works for some 30 years, but now it's finally set to open.

The appropriately named Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is a whopping 34 miles long.

And because it's such a lengthy journey, calling it a bridge doesn't fully do it justice.

It's actually a bridge-tunnel system, which includes an undersea tunnel

and three artificial islands along the way.

It has cost an estimated $17 billion to build.

You can actually see the airport behind me. It's pretty much at the base of the bridge.

The bridge originates just near the Hong Kong International Airport and continues

all the way to Macau, the former Portuguese colony that made its name as the Las Vegas of Asia.

After reaching Macau, the bridge continues on to a city called Zhuhai,

one of China's very first Special Economic Zones,

it's a city with business and tax incentives to attract foreign investors.

In Hong Kong and Macau, cars drive on the left side of the road,

but in Mainland China, you drive on the right side.

At the base of the Hong Kong side, the lanes swap, so the bridge follows the same style as Mainland China.

That's not the only difference between Hong Kong and Macau, and Mainland China.

While the two are technically a part of China, they're what's called Special Administrative Regions.

That means they operate under their own sets of rules and economic freedoms.

Some critics have actually linked the bridge to sort of an umbilical cord, between Hong Kong and China

saying that by building this bridge, it's sort of a symbolic way

of China increasingly having influence over Hong Kong.

Opponents fear further integration means they'll lose some of that independence,

while others worry Hong Kong will lose business to Mainland China as it becomes more accessible.

Hong Kong's share of the Chinese economy has fallen from 27% in the 1990s to three percent now.

they want to play a big part in this new region and China's economy overall.

This is Eric. He's the co-founder of travel tech startup, Klook.

Say you're visiting a city and want to find something cool to do.

Well, his app matches you to things like a walking tour or boat ride.

It might not sound like a groundbreaking tech concept here.

But in just a few years, he's grown his company across Asia and has raised $300 million in funding.

He'll be using his latest round to expand in Europe and the U.S.

Since Eric's company provides travel experiences, he thinks the new bridge will create new ones.

Like a service that will bring people from Hong Kong to Macau by bus,

instead of having to take a ferry, or helicopter ride if that's in your budget.

When they come to Hong Kong, they would like to go to Macau, but then some of them say,

"Oh, I don't want to get on the boat," they might get seasick and so forth.

Now the bridge will be very convenient for them.

But Eric's not just enthusiastic about the bridge. He thinks the new train will help his operations, too.

The Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link, or 'Vibrant Express,'

does what its name suggests, linking Hong Kong to Southern China's major cities by a high-speed train.

Some of his employees commute every day from Shenzhen,

a booming city just across the border, to his offices in Hong Kong.

Previously, the commute took one hour by bus. But now it will take them about 15 minutes by train.

Hong Kong was a lot more business, more professional, right.

But then Shenzhen was uniquely positioned for technology, for manufacturing,

so there is a unique combination of synergy, of culture and talents.

Absolutely, because for example, our business, we are based in Hong Kong,

but we actually have a major R&D innovation hub in Shenzhen,

so we leverage that power of China innovation as well as with Hong Kong as the window to the world.

Eric doesn't seem to be concerned by the politics of it all.

There's some critics, who will say politically Hong Kong is supposed to be independent,

I think you hear some voices, but we should look at Asia as a whole, how do we become more interconnected,

just like how Europe becomes one more interconnected region, so Hong Kong will be part of that.

Before I leave Hong Kong, I want to see what makes it

one of the world's most popular international destinations.

More than seven million people live in Hong Kong

and because it's spread out over a peninsula and a few inhabitable islands

it's considered one of the most densely-populated places on earth.

But in order to understand what makes this city iconic, you have to see it at night.

Hong Kong is quite an international and dynamic city.

In fact, any cuisine you can think of, chances are they have a restaurant for it here in Hong Kong.

And there's so many restaurants, it's such an important part of the culture here

that it's said that for every 600 residents here in Hong Kong, there's a restaurant.

That's a restaurant per capita ratio that rivals most cities in the world.

This area is known as Soho, it's one of the city's hotspots.

Each of the three areas that the bridge connects have different currencies.

So Macau has a different currency than Hong Kong, which has a different currency than the mainland.

Macau has the pataca and China has the yuan.

That's an issue, and could be a barrier to creating a truly interconnected region.

In order for it to actually work, people need to move away from cash and pay digitally.

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大灣區。香港、澳門和中國大陸的橋樑｜CNBC報道 (The Greater Bay Area: Bridging Hong Kong, Macau and Mainland China | CNBC Reports)

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