A new investment drive forms part of efforts to link Hong Kong and Macao more closely with the Greater Bay Area’s nine Guangdong cities
Greater Bay Area integration gets fresh investment push at Guangzhou conference
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The Greater Bay Area’s latest investment push brought Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao officials together in Guangzhou last week, with 42 major projects unveiled at the region’s annual global investment promotion conference.
Jointly hosted by the three governments, the 2026 Global Investment Promotion Conference for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area provided a platform to promote business opportunities across the region, according to the Guangzhou government’s account.
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The first four editions of the conference produced 5,718 investment and trade cooperation agreements with a combined stated value exceeding 9 trillion yuan, Yangcheng Evening News reported.
Connecting markets and infrastructure
The investment drive forms part of efforts to link Hong Kong and Macao more closely with the Greater Bay Area’s nine Guangdong cities, including Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai. Guangdong’s 2026 government work programme prioritised infrastructure connectivity and closer alignment of rules across the three jurisdictions.
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Among the transport priorities identified in the programme was starting construction of the Guangzhou–Zhuhai (Macao) high-speed railway, according to the Guangdong Foreign Affairs Office’s summary.
Economic scale and the outlook
The region’s combined economic output reached a preliminary 15.36 trillion yuan in 2025, according to a report released in October and previously covered by The Bay. The figure supersedes the earlier expectation that output would exceed 15 trillion yuan.
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The report anticipated stronger regional growth in 2026, although a numerical full-year GDP forecast has not yet been made. Separately, Guangdong set a provincial growth target of 4.5–5 percent for 2026.
UPDATED: 11 Nov 2026, 10:04 am
