Macau Business | March 2022 | Special Report | GBA 5 years young
A recently published study by three professors from the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST) and three experts from the China Science and Technology Exchange Centre in Beijing analysed how the three main Chinese cities in the Greater Bay Area (GBA), Guangdong, Shenzhen and Zhuhai, plus Macau and Hong Kong have responded to the Covid-19 outbreak, analysing the performance and effectiveness of various medical systems in public health emergencies and clarifying the functions of medical institutions, medical staff, medical supplies, etc.
The results show that in comparison to Hong Kong and Macau, “the three cities in the Mainland have a strongly founded medical system for epidemic prevention.”
On the other side, “Macau and the three cities in the Mainland maintained a high degree of consistency in the early stage of the epidemic and jointly promoted the mechanism of tackling key epidemic prevention problems, which performed well in the effectiveness of responding to the epidemic.”
Hong Kong is a different question: “Due to the positioning restriction of the ‘international shipping centre’ and the impact of social tearing aftershocks, Hong Kong was difficult to quickly and comprehensively lock up, and the effectiveness of responding to the epidemic was slightly poor,” the research points out.
These results are not dissimilar to those obtained from the Joint survey conducted by Lingnan University and South China University of Technology in April 2020: GBA residents in Mainland China believe epidemic prevention is done better in the Mainland than in Hong Kong and Macau.
With 10 being very good and 0 representing not ideal, the survey invited respondents to give scores to medical staff, their local governments and the Hong Kong and Macau governments on their performance with respect to epidemic prevention. The results showed that the medical staff received the highest score of 9.41. As for the governments in mainland GBA, Hong Kong and Macau, mainland governments took the best score with the average of 8.61 and Zhuhai got the highest mark (8.88) among the nine mainland cities, followed by Dongguan (8.81). Regarding Hong Kong and Macau, the government of Macau gained 8.36 and Hong Kong scored 7.14.
Professor and Vice-President of Lingnan University Joshua Mok Ka-ho, who led the study, said that, as the survey clearly showed, mainland residents in the GBA did not negate the degree of economic development, internationalisation, convenient shopping and openness of Hong Kong, however, they had reservations about the “urban governance”, “safety”, “inclusiveness” and “friendliness” of the city’s performance.
As quoted on the Lingnan University website, Professor Mok suggested that “after the epidemic, the government of Hong Kong should reference anti-epidemic work from all over the world to review its own actions, especially in the aspects of preventive measures and its communication with residents, namely, how to explain government policies comprehensively and in a timely manner. The government should also re-examine and institute its measures and work together with residents to improve the overall impression of safety and inclusiveness of Hong Kong to revitalize tourism.” Professor Mok told Macau Business this also applies to Macau.
“Macau and the three [main GBA] cities maintained a high degree of consistency in the early stage of the epidemic and jointly promoted the mechanism of tackling key epidemic prevention problems, which performed well in the effectiveness of responding to the epidemic” – study
Excluding the issue of tourism (dealt with earlier in this special report), Hong Kong seems to have been most impacted by Covid, in the context of the GBA.
According to public reports, many Special Administrative Region entrepreneurs doing business in Shenzhen were left without direct access to facilities and even bank accounts (or were subject to lengthy quarantines upon entering Shenzhen). Revenues are down 50 percent, according to an estimate by Nikkei Asia.
Dennis Zuev, an expert on Digital Urbanism and Mobility, City University of Macau, told Macau Radio, “[The pandemic] did not show that there was a very well-defined coordination plan [for the GBA] in terms of residence permits or even emergency management: how to deal with the emergency? They are different places, with different regulations: how to find a common denomination? Yes, it failed. There were so many checkpoints on each side of the border. For the GBA project to be a true example of integration, this kind of ‘small politics’ has to be put aside.”
“Macau, an economically developed city”
The survey conducted jointly by Lingnan University and South China University of Technology also asked participants to evaluate their overall impressions of Hong Kong and Macau. The online questionnaire was administered in early April 2020 and successfully surveyed 1,040 mainland residents aged 18 or above living in the nine mainland cities of the GBA (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, Dongguan, Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Huizhou, Jiangmen and Zhaoqing). All participants were invited to evaluate their overall impression (8 dimensions) of Hong Kong and Macau in independent questions. The data for Macau is given below:
| Items | Strongly disagree | Disagree | Neither agree nor disagree | Agree | Strongly agree |
| an economically developed city | 4 (0.38%) | 12 (1.15%) | 174 (16.73%) | 568 (54.62%) | 282 (27.12%) |
| a highly international city | 4 (0.38%) | 26 (2.5%) | 189 (18.17%) | 449 (43.17%) | 372 (35.77%) |
| a shopping paradise | 9 (0.87%) | 62 (5.96%) | 295 (28.37%) | 416 (40%) | 258 (24.81%) |
| a city with good urban governance | 5 (0.48%) | 46 (4.42%) | 265 (25.48%) | 468 (45%) | 256 (24.62%) |
| a safe city | 12 (1.15%) | 44 (4.23%) | 259 (24.9%) | 500 (48.08%) | 225 (21.63%) |
| an inclusive city | 8 (0.77%) | 48 (4.62%) | 239 (22.98%) | 461 (44.33%) | 284 (27.31%) |
| an open city | 7 (0.67%) | 22 (2.12%) | 164 (15.77%) | 513 (49.33%) | 334 (32.12%) |
| a friendly city | 6 (0.58%) | 35 (3.37%) | 232 (22.31%) | 446 (42.88%) | 321 (30.87%) |
