Lin Nianxiu, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, made the remarks at a symposium held in Hong Kong with the aim of analyzing the outline.

The Bay Area blueprint will offer new solutions for long-standing problems which hinder the development of Guangdong province and the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, said Lin, who is also deputy director of the Office of the Leading Group for the Development of the Bay Area.

The blueprint will also deepen collaboration among Bay Area cities and maximize their own strengths, he added.

In this way, the outline contributes to the region's overall competitiveness, and will help turn it into a global powerhouse.

He said developing the Bay Area was not an easy task as it contains two different social systems and three different currencies and taxation systems. He stressed that the challenges require all Bay Area cities to adhere to the "one country, two systems" principle and act in accordance with the law.

To push ahead with the outline's implementation, Lin said the State Council's leading group will continue to collect opinions from different sectors in the region, especially suggestions from the Hong Kong and Macao SARs.

Guo Lanfeng, director-general of the NDRC's Department of Regional Economy, told the symposium the Bay Area will prioritize the development of innovation and technology with focuses on improving people's livelihoods and promoting the flow of people, vehicles and goods to boost high-quality development.

Zhang Mingjie, a Hong Kong scholar of life science and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, felt "cheerful" about the outline. He noted it had attached "unprecedented" importance to innovation and technology and laid out the sector's development framework with clear goals on different stages.

To better visualize the plan, he believes the region's scientific sector should conduct a complete review of the current assessment mechanism of scientific outcomes. This will create favorable conditions for scientists to conduct "truly innovative" research which will benefit everyone, he explains.

He also hopes closer collaboration can develop between local governments, scientific institutions and enterprises in areas like patent protection. "Otherwise, all efforts in scientific research will be in vain," Zhang concluded.

While praising the ideas proposed in the outline on the cross-boundary use of scientific funds and facilities, he also called for more interactions between mainland and Hong Kong scientists, and he hopes to form a regular communication mechanism which will contribute to more technology breakthroughs in the long run.(Source: China Daily HK)