Work Package 5: Demonstration Projects

Detailed description:

The Pearl River Delta includes Hong Kong, Macau and part of Guangdong province (including the nine municipalities of Dongguan, Foshan, Guangzhou, Huizhou, Jiangmen, Shenzhen, Zhaoqing, Zhongshan and Zhuhai), and is a region which was opened up to commerce and foreign investment in 1978 by the central government of the People’s Republic of China.

The Pearl River Delta economic area is the main exporter and importer of all the great regions of China , and can even be regarded as an economic power. In 2002, exports from the Delta to regions other than Hong Kong , Macau and continental China reached USD 160 billion.

The Pearl River Delta, despite accounting for just 0.5 percent of the total Chinese territory and having just 5 percent of its population, generates 20 percent of the country’s GDP.

The population of the Pearl River Delta, now estimated at 50 million people, is expected to grow to 75 million within a decade.

Apart from investment from Macau and Hong Kong companies, in the rest of the Delta, the Province of Guangdong has, for the last 20 years, been the focus of direct foreign investment, much of which from North American companies looking to make use of the same competitive edge enjoyed by Macau and Hong Kong.

The demonstration project in the Pearl River Delta will practise the approach of: cross-sectors cooperation (Department of Finance, Transportation, Water Resources, Environmental Protection and etc.); transbountry cooperation  (Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong Province); and management of urbanization with the urbanization rate of over 70% and development of ecological regulation by green solution

Work Package Outputs:

(1) Integrate the water security and climate resilience into the “Water Allocation Plan of the Pearl River Delta” drafted by the Ministry of Water Resources;

(2) Promote the legislation process  of the “Water Allocation Regulation of the Pearl River Delta”;

(3) Support the feasibility study of Datengxia Water Complex in the Pearl River Delta.