[Big read] Greater Bay Area grand plan gets a boost with Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge

Shenzhen foreign trade merchant Ou Yuanjia drives at least four hours to and from Zhongshan every week to meet with suppliers. He told Lianhe Zaobao that despite the short distance, the journey entails a laborious route. It involves a detour northward towards Dongguan and Guangzhou before crossing the congested Humen Bridge and heading southward towards Zhongshan.

With the anticipated opening of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge scheduled for this June, the inconvenience of the commute will soon be a thing of the past. According to officials, this 24-kilometre cross-sea link will shorten the drive between Shenzhen and Zhongshan from two hours to just half an hour.

Ou said that he and his colleagues are looking forward to the opening of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge. He joked, “To make better use of our time, we normally travel in groups so that at least one of us can work in the car. We won’t need to do this anymore.”

Apart from connecting the cities of Shenzhen and Zhongshan, this new link will also serve as a transportation hub connecting city clusters on the eastern and western parts of the Pearl River.

Liu Wentian, executive president of Golden Verde (钜园农业), a catering and agriculture business in Guangdong, pointed out that the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge would greatly increase the logistics efficiency between cities in the Greater Bay Area (GBA), especially benefiting fresh food businesses like his.

Liu is also executive chair of the South China region of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He runs a farm in Maoming city, located in western Guangdong, and delivers produce daily to all parts of the province, including cities on the east bank of the Pearl River. He anticipates that the new link will save about 40 minutes per trip.

He said, “While the time saved per trip doesn’t seem like a lot, we make many of such trips every day. The long-term savings in logistics and labour costs are huge.”

The GBA comprises the two special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, as well as the nine cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen and Zhaoqing in Guangdong province, with a coastline that resembles a trumpet.

The existing cross-sea links connecting the east and west sides of the Pearl River include Guangzhou’s Nansha Bridge and Dongguan’s Humen Bridge in the north, and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge spanning the Lingdingyang (Lingding Channel) in the south. The completion of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge will mark the most vital link in the A-shaped transportation network of the GBA.

Guo Wanda, executive vice-president of Shenzhen-based China Development Institute, said when interviewed that cross-sea transportation networks play a pivotal role in bay areas around the world and are critical infrastructure for the economic development of metropolitan areas. However, compared with other bay areas in the world, the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macau GBA is still underdeveloped in this aspect.

Taking the US as an example, Guo noted that the country’s famed San Francisco Bay Area boasts of eight cross-sea bridges, with an average of one every 30 kilometres along the coastline. But in the GBA, there is no link within the 60 kilometres between Humen Bridge and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge — the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge fills this gap.

The GBA is one of the world’s most densely populated bay areas in the world. Guo said that the congestion level of the Humen Bridge illustrates that cross-sea traffic in the GBA is already overwhelmed, affecting people’s commute and significantly increasing transportation costs.

He said, “The Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge will ease the current traffic bottleneck, and efficient transportation will help promote the balanced development of the GBA.”

When the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge became operational in 2018, the authorities had wanted to change the situation whereby the east bank of the Pearl River was economically stronger than the west bank. However, five years later, traffic flow across the bridge has not reached the anticipated levels.

The Hong Kong government’s feasibility study for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge in 2008 projected that the average traffic flow of the bridge would reach 15,350 to 22,300 vehicles a day by 2020. However, data from the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge Authority showed that the average traffic flow of the bridge in 2023 was just 6,244 vehicles a day, far lower than expected.

Interviewed road users said they avoid the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge due to administrative differences among the three places, numerous restrictions, cumbersome permit procedures, long travelling distances and high tolls.

Zheng Tianxiang, a professor from Sun Yat-sen University’s Centre for Studies of Hong Kong, Macau, and the Pearl River Delta, who studies the infrastructure of the GBA, assessed when interviewed that the traffic flow of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge must reach at least 30,000 vehicles a day to recover operating costs.

He thinks that the opening of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge at this juncture would divert traffic from the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge. Considering the impact of the global economic slowdown on China’s imports and exports, as well as the lack of a significant overall increase in vehicular traffic volume, Zheng evaluated that it would take at least five years for the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge to reach full capacity.

He also reminded that the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge will be in direct competition with each other. “Compared with the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge is nearer and there are no licence plate restrictions. It is also more centralised and has a lower toll. Goods and people travelling from Shenzhen to Zhuhai and Zhongshan could take the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge instead,” he said.

To prevent conflicts and vicious competition between the two bridges for customers and goods, Zheng suggests that the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge should improve accessibility and complement the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge.

He proposed that the two bridges could form a “core inner ring” somewhat like a one-way ring road in a city, upgrade the supporting facilities along the route and form a bay area traffic management committee to jointly manage both bridges and address the challenge of administrative differences.

Meanwhile, Yuan Qifeng, president of the Guangdong innovation and development research society and professor at the South China University of Technology, thinks that there is no clear competition between the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge. He attributes the lower traffic volume on the former mainly to the construction of the Port of Nansha after 2000, which successfully intercepted a significant portion of cargo flow from the west bank of the Pearl River because of its cost advantage.

Statistics showed that the Port of Nansha’s container throughput reached 19.375 million TEUs in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 5.4%. During the same period, the Port of Hong Kong’s container throughput reached 14.342 million TEUs, a year-on-year decrease of 14.1%, marking the first time it fell from the world’s top ten busiest container ports since records were available.

Several analysts pointed out that while the Port of Hong Kong’s fall from prominence can certainly be attributed to the impact of the China-US trade war, the intensifying competition between the ports in the GBA cannot be overlooked as well.

Yuan noted that, if the Pearl River Delta is regarded as the “world’s factory”, the massive highway construction of the 1990s served as the linkways connecting this world’s factory to the seaports. The authorities’ decision to build the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge was also primarily motivated by the need to transport goods from the west bank of the Pearl River to the Port of Hong Kong. But when the “front shop, back factory” model changed and the China-US trade war broke out, the Port of Hong Kong’s overall value to the Pearl River Delta dropped, and the bridge “had neither goods nor people crossing it, and became but a sightseeing bridge”.

He thinks that this will not happen to the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge because it functions and is positioned differently: it mainly serves Guangdong vehicles, eases the heavily congested Humen Bridge, and reduces vehicle detours on both sides of the Lingdinyang.

The economic size of the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macau GBA rivals that of the world’s three major bay areas, but the unbalanced development between the east and west banks of the Pearl River estuary still stands out.

Academics interviewed believe that once the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge becomes operational, it would mark the implementation of the Lingdingyang “Golden Inner Bay” megalopolis strategy, forming a metropolitan area with Shenzhen as the centre. Zhuhai, Zhongshan and Jiangmen would become Shenzhen’s hinterland, spurring even more cooperation and balanced development for the cities in the GBA.

In 1980, Shenzhen and Zhuhai, which are located on the opposite sides in the southernmost point of the Pearl River estuary, became the first special economic zones (SEZ) in China. There was not much difference between the population, land and economic sizes of both areas back then. However, after more than 40 years of development, the overall performance of both areas have shown stark differences.

As a gathering point for many high tech firms and future industries, Shenzhen’s GDP in 2023 reached 3.46 trillion RMB (US$482 billion); eight times that of Zhuhai. The gap in development between the two has reflected the “strong east, weak west” phenomenon of unequal development for the Pearl River Delta.

Spurred by the spillover from Shenzhen’s industries, the GDP for the Shenzhen-Dongguan-Huizhou metro area in the east of the Pearl River estuary broke the 5 trillion RMB mark in 2023 to reach 5.17 trillion RMB. In comparison, the Zhuhai-Zhongshan-Jiangmen metro area on the west side of the Pearl River estuary lacks an industry leader to spur the economy, with industrial cooperation and resources for innovation relatively lacking. It only broke the 1 trillion RMB for its GDP in 2021, with each city averaging less than 400 billion RMB.

In order to spur development both in the east and west of the Pearl River, in 2022 Guangdong proposed the “Golden Inner Bay” strategic pilot for the 100km area surrounding the Pearl River Delta, developing the cities around Lingdingyang Bay into a metropolitan area, in order to encourage the concentration of high-end industrial functions and high-level public service resources in the area surrounding the Pearl River estuary.

In fact, since 2010 Shenzhen has been laying the groundwork for this development plan. South China University of Technology’s Yuan recounted when interviewed that Shenzhen’s development focus before 2010 had been eastbound, pushing for the development of Pingshan, which shares borders with Dongguan and Huizhou, as well as the development of the Daya Bay area.

But when the State Council approved the general plan to develop Qianhai in 2010, the direction of Shenzhen’s urban construction changed noticeably. Resources were notably directed towards westward expansion, particularly along the eastern coast of Lingdingyang.

In the following decade, Shenzhen established the Qianhai-Shekou free trade zone, an airport economic zone, and the Shenzhen Bay Super Headquarters Base, among other industrial cities, while also constructing the world’s largest exhibition centre north of the airport — all in a bid to become the industrial organisation and service centre for the GBA.

Qianhai’s development was slowed due to factors such as Covid-19 and the sluggish pace of China’s overall economy. But Yuan believes that Qianhai’s strategic purpose lies in the fact that it is of great influence to the development of the entire Guangdong province, spurring Shenzhen to transform from a SEZ that was focused on promoting industrial development into a central metropolis for the region.

He added, “The Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge is a key move for Guangdong in establishing the Golden Inner Bay strategy, and it has also surfaced two metro areas for the Pearl River Delta region, namely the Guangzhou-Foshan metro area with Guangzhou as the centre, as well as the metro area surrounding Lingdingyang Bay with Shenzhen (Qianhai) as its centre. With the Shenzhen-Maoming railway set to cut across Lingdingyang in 2028, this would firm up the dual-centre framework.”

According to Yuan, Shenzhen leveraged both finance and innovation to give rise to a high-level industrial innovation capability. With industries in Shenzhen constantly upgrading and changing, they can easily utilise the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge to move the downstream manufacturing sector outwards, which would in turn be beneficial to “driving the development of the little brothers in the Zhuhai-Zhongshan-Jiangmen region, something that the provincial government would be pleased about”.

He added that Shenzhen’s strong innovation economy and sustained industrial output has made the cities west of the Pearl River Delta — i.e., Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Jiangmen and even Nansha in Guangzhou — into its hinterland, forming an industrial cooperation zone.

Yuan commented, “The land and human resources for the Zhuhai-Zhongshan-Jiangmen region are ample, and social capital developed historically is suitable for economic development, with high potential for development. Once the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge becomes operational, the metro area around Lingdingyang Bay would be able to cooperate better, fully utilising Shenzhen as the central city to bring about regional development.”

As a city that is connected directly to Shenzhen via the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge, Zhongshan is a direct beneficiary of the bridge, as Shenzhen’s capital and talent would be attracted to Zhongshan through the syphon effect. Academics interviewed pointed out that the flow of production factors will enhance the efficiency of resource allocation, but Zhongshan must create a positive business environment to effectively connect with Shenzhen businesses.

As one of the “four little tigers” of Guangzhou, Zhongshan experienced rapid development in the 1980s and 1990s, with economic growth in 2004 hitting a high of 18.7%, ranking third in the province. But in the past decade or so, Zhongshan has been hampered by its resources and location, making the upgrade or transformation of its industries difficult, hence causing its relatively lagged development.

Zhongshan’s GDP ranking also fell greatly, to ninth in the province in 2023 with 385.065 billion RMB, among the bottom three cities in the GBA.

For Zhongshan, the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge is the key to reliving their glory days. The city looks to be prepared to latch on to the opportunity.

Zhongshan proposed the establishment of a Shenzhen-Zhongshan economic cooperation zone, speeding up land preparation works and setting up upstream and downstream complementary businesses around Shenzhen’s industry groups.

Guo Wanda, executive vice president for Shenzhen’s China Development Institute, told Lianhe Zaobao that the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge would bring about the flow of talent and capital between the two sides, which is not only beneficial to Shenzhen in continuing to achieve innovative breakthroughs, it is also helpful for businesses when it comes to adjusting resource allocation to bring about the development of emerging industries in Zhongshan.

Guo stated, “These production factors are like water; when there is too much in a cup it will overflow. The water must spill over to create a lively flow.”

As a manufacturing city, Zhongshan is mainly reliant on traditional manufacturing industries such as home appliances, hardware, and machinery and equipment.

Guo stated that even though Zhongshan’s current industrial structure belongs to the low end of the value chain, its businesses can push to upgrade themselves through even closer interactions with Shenzhen’s innovative industries, such as by manufacturing smart home appliances and intelligent mobile robots.

He said, “There are no sunset industries, only sunset technologies. Zhongshan possesses a solid manufacturing base and a comprehensive range of industries. With the support of Shenzhen, Zhongshan can better capitalise on digitalisation and intelligentisation opportunities.”

Guo opined that a factor determining whether Zhongshan is successful would be if the city is able to create a positive business environment to help it connect with Shenzhen businesses.

He stated, “A business environment is not only about the hard environment, it is also about the soft environment. There is still a gap when it comes to the legal standards and government service capabilities between Zhongshan and Shenzhen. The function of the local government is not just to collect taxes and rent, it must also serve the businesses well.”

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “深中通道通车在即 激活大湾区新引擎”.

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