Bay area expecting invigorated tech vitality

Measures promoting reforms for market-based allocation of technological and data elements in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area will further ignite innovation vitality and unleash its industrial advantages, experts said.

The remarks were made following the launch of comprehensive pilot reform plans to push forward with market-based allocation of production factors across 10 key regions.

The State Council, China's Cabinet, last week approved the launch of the two-year pilot reform programs in regions including the Beijing sub city-center; key cities in southern Jiangsu province; the Hefei metropolitan area in Anhui province; Zhengzhou, Henan province; the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan city cluster; and the nine mainland cities of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao GBA.

Compared to the other nine regions involved in the initiative, the implementation plan for the nine Guangdong cities in the GBA is different as it involves "one country, two systems, three Customs zones", said Yu Zongliang, director of the Open Economy and Innovation Research of China Development Institute, a Shenzhen, Guangdong province-based think tank.

The flow of factors in the region faces obstacles in terms of legal systems, regulatory standards and mutual recognition of qualifications, and the nine cities face their own barriers related to movement and policy discrepancies, Yu said.

"The plan addresses these issues by treating the cities as a unified entity for comprehensive reform, focusing on the integrated allocation of factors. The goal is to establish a cohesive regional market and eliminate administrative barriers and policy differences that impede the free flow of factors, offering experience for regional coordination across the country."

According to the plan, efforts will be made to improve property rights systems for scientific and technological achievements. State-owned tech enterprises are encouraged to increase the share of net income from the transfer of technological achievements for research and development teams and key contributors to over 50 percent.

The plan also proposes establishing a market-driven system for the selection of tech projects, resource allocation and evaluation of outcomes.

"This will further break longstanding institutional barriers, stimulate enthusiasm and creativity among university researchers, research institutes and enterprises, promote the efficient integration of technological innovation from 0 to 1 and industrial innovation from 1 to N, and facilitate transfer and iteration of technology," said Zhang Zhengang, a professor at the school of business administration, South China University of Technology.

To accelerate the cultivation of a data market in South China, the nine Guangdong cities are encouraged to promote the opening and sharing of public data by implementing a "chief data officer" system and exploring the asset management of public data.

The plan also proposes authorizing the operation of government data and establishing public data management institutions.

"Intangible factors like data and computing power have become key production resources amid the digital economy wave. They essentially signify a contest among new quality productive forces, with the core battleground situated in emerging industries," said Jinan University professor Hu Gang.

The development will enable the GBA to further unleash its industrial advantages and give better play to its value as a pivot, Hu added.