ABSTRACT
The latest policy goal is to upgrade this region into a Greater Bay Area, building a globally-competitive advanced economy that will benefit from the comparative advantages of its different components in Guangdong province and the two Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao. The global economic and financial crisis hit in 2008, Guangdong province had good reason to consider itself at the forefront of China's economic development. The Pearl River Delta (PRD) is a region that has been redefined and formed in the context of China's integration into the global economy, which took place at a time when the country was entering a new phase in its policy approaches and development. Looking again at the idea of the Greater Bay Area—or the PRD mega-city first discussed in the 1990s—shows the importance of the global linkages in all of these developments.
