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Survey Findings on Public Opinion about the Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area
After more than two years since the outline for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (Greater Bay Area hereafter) Development Plan was released, the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) conducted a survey from 15 to 26 July 2021 to gauge public views on the plan. A total of 706 respondents aged 18 or above were successfully interviewed, through both mobile phones (356) and landlines (350), with response rates of 28.1% (landlines) and 31.9% (mobile phones). The sampling error was estimated at plus or minus 3.69 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
Major findings are summarised as follows:
More than a third (35.9%) of the respondents deemed the development plan an opportunity for Hong Kong, while around a quarter (23.5%) disagreed and a third (34.3%) were neutral.
The finance, innovative technology, transport and logistics industries in Hong Kong have the potential to grow under the Greater Bay Area Development Plan. Of the total respondents, 38.3% agreed the plan would benefit the finance industry, while 30.0% objected and 25.0% were neutral. As to benefiting the innovative technology industry, 38.8% agreed, but 24.6% of the respondents disagreed and 28.3% were neutral. In contrast to the former two industries, more respondents (43.7%) believed the plan could benefit the transport and logistics industry, while 25.9% did not and 19.3% were neutral.
Of the 701 respondents, 45.1% of the respondents believed that the participation of Hong Kong in the plan brought both opportunities and challenges. While 30.1% highlighted more opportunities that the plan would bring to Hong Kong and 16.3% emphasised more challenges would be brought to Hong Kong.
The development plan offers to facilitate movement of Hongkongers to work or to live in Mainland cities of the Greater Bay Area, but 55.7% of the respondents saw the competitiveness of Hongkongers in Mainland cities as “very little” (35.2%) or “none at all” (20.5%), while 28.1% saw it as “large” (22.4%) or “very large” (5.7%).
Of the 701 respondents, 54.5% of them did not intend to move to Mainland cities of the Greater Bay Area, while 31.2% would like to. When asked whether they would encourage young people in Hong Kong to move to Mainland cities of the Greater Bay Area, 45.9% of the respondents would not do so, while 37.0% would encourage young people to go and 9.2% would do so under certain conditions.
