235 "Greater Bay Area Standards" Drive Integrated High-quality Development in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

On the morning of May 21, the State Administration for Market Regulation (hereinafter referred to as the "SAMR") held a press conference in Guangzhou to promote "Greater Bay Area Standards" facilitating ‘soft connectivity’ in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. To date, 235 "Greater Bay Area Standards" have been established, covering transportation, healthcare, food, elderly care, childcare, meteorology, catering, and culture. Chen Xinlie, Party Secretary and Director of the Guangdong Provincial Market Supervision Administration, announced that nine new standards will soon be implemented, covering industry, the business environment, and culture.

Zhu Zhongliang, Deputy Director of the Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Affairs Office of the SAMR, stated that the standards will expand to strategic emerging and future industries such as artificial intelligence, low-altitude economy, new energy, biomedicine, smart cities, and the silver economy, to better facilitate high-quality development.

As technical foundations for economic and social development, these standards drive the Greater Bay Area’s high-quality development. Officially named the “Common Implementation Standards of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area,” they are technical standards jointly developed through tripartite consultation.

The "Bay Area Standards" are published as a list. There are two ways of formulation: one is through formulation—when there are no existing standards in the Greater Bay Area, relevant parties from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao jointly formulate them, and after confirmation, they are included in the list of "Bay Area Standards." The other is through adoption—existing standards suitable for implementation in the Greater Bay Area are included in the list after confirmation.

Over the past five years, these standards have gradually become a hallmark of the Greater Bay Area’s development. Serving as a platform for sharing advanced technologies and management expertise among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, they have gained increasing recognition across the region. Their applications continue to expand, being widely adopted as technical specifications, service guidelines, and training references.

Qiu Shiying, Acting Deputy Director of Hong Kong's Trade and Industry Department, stated that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government consistently encourages local participation in developing the "Bay Area Standards." Many industry associations, enterprises, universities, institutions, government departments, and related organizations in Hong Kong have contributed to their formulation.

Chen Zurong, Macao's Deputy Director of the Economic and Technological Development Bureau, emphasized active implementation and enterprise adoption to maximize the role of standardization in global connectivity and development.

At the conference, Zhu Zhongliang announced that the SAMR plans to establish a working mechanism to convert these standards into international ones, enhancing their global influence while aligning them with international norms.

Among these “Greater Bay Area Standards,” two—such as the "Construction Specification of an Ophthalmic Intelligent Medical Internet Platform Based on 5G Technology"—have served 150,000 patient visits across 108 urban and rural areas in 29 provincial-level regions nationwide. A series of "Bay Area Standards" benchmarked against advanced international halogen-free and low-smoke products have promoted the wide application of halogen-free cable technology in intercity rail transit, photovoltaic power generation, 5G communication, and green buildings. This series of standards has been widely adopted in major projects in the Hainan Free Trade Port as well as in Belt and Road countries and regions such as Southeast Asia, enabling high-quality products from the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to connect globally.