CE visits Zhaoqing and Jiangmen (with photos/videos)

     The Chief Executive, Mrs Carrie Lam, and the Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Mr Patrick Nip, continued their visit to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area cities in Zhaoqing and Jiangmen today (May 17).

     In the morning, accompanied by the Secretary of the CPC Zhaoqing Municipal Committee, Mr Lai Zehua, and the Mayor of the Zhaoqing Municipal Government, Mr Fan Zhongjie, Mrs Lam and Mr Nip first visited Xinghu Lake Wetland Park to learn about its water quality management, wetland ecosystem restoration and heritage conservation. As one of the largest lakes in Guangdong, Xinghu Lake is an important ecological and tourism asset in Zhaoqing.

     Afterwards, they went to Zhaoqing New District to find out more about its planning and related development proposals, as well as its underground tube system. Zhaoqing New District is one of the nine major innovation development platforms in Guangdong, and is aimed at developing innovative sectors such as digital economy, new energy vehicles and biomedicine. The new district has also taken the lead in introducing the underground tube system to integrate the electrical, communications, natural gas, water supply and sewage networks, which are being built simultaneously with the road system, thus enabling convenient future maintenance and the freeing-up of land for city development.

     Mrs Lam and Mr Nip also visited the Hong Kong-Macao Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Base at Tus-City to learn about the services provided for start-ups including internship, exchanges, employment, setting up of businesses and daily living.

     They then went to the Zhaoqing East Station transportation hub to visit the transport interchange connecting the Zhaoqing East high-speed rail station and the Dinghudong intercity railway station, and to Station Square to learn about Zhaoqing's transport infrastructure and its advantages. This core area will continue to be developed as an integrated passenger terminal for high-speed railways, inter-city railways, highway transport and public transport.

     At noon, Mrs Lam and Mr Nip attended a lunch hosted by Mr Lai and Mr Fan before travelling to Jiangmen.

     They started their visit to Jiangmen at Inno Valley, an incubator for scientific technology enterprises from Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and were briefed on the incubation services and co-working spaces for the enterprises. About 100 enterprises have set up a presence in Inno Valley to date, of which more than half are from Hong Kong. Inno Valley also collaborates with the higher education institutions in Hong Kong on transformation of scientific and technological achievements.

     Mrs Lam and Mr Nip then visited the Jiangmen Wuyi Museum of Overseas Chinese to learn about the culture and history of overseas Chinese and their contributions to the homeland after they had established businesses abroad.

     In the evening, they attended a dinner hosted by the Secretary of the CPC Jiangmen Municipal Committee, Mr Lin Yingwu, and the Mayor of Jiangmen Municipal Government, Mr Liu Yi.

     Mrs Lam will continue her visit tomorrow (May 18).