Guangdong province is promoting unified identity authentication and mutual recognition of electronic signatures among residents in the southern province and the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, making life in the three regions more convenient.

According to the Three-Year Action Plan of Digital Greater Bay Area Construction, which was recently published by the provincial government, Guangdong will coordinate with the central government to promote the electronic processing of cross-border affairs for Hong Kong and Macao residents, including issuing travel permits to the mainland.

The move aims to accelerate the integrated development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

"We are expecting to use digitalization to effectively connect the rules and mechanisms of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, increase efficient connectivity of new infrastructure, promote economic development, deeply integrate public services and social governance, and accelerate the construction and creation of a unified large market and high-quality living circle in the three regions," said Yang Pengfei, director of the Guangdong provincial government services and data management bureau.

"The goal is to build the GBA into an area with the highest level of digitalization in the world," Yang remarked at a news conference in the provincial capital Guangzhou on Tuesday.

"Guangdong will spare no effort to promote the collaborative introduction of talent among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao to accelerate the construction of a digital talent highland in the GBA," he said.

Meanwhile, Guangdong expects to cooperate with Hong Kong and Macao to establish a data aggregation zone and support the Guangzhou and Shenzhen data exchanges to construct national-level exchanges and build a unified data trading market.

"Relevant departments from Guangdong will also join hands with Hong Kong and Macao to build a high-speed and ubiquitous network infrastructure, accelerate the construction of an integrated computing power network hub in the southern Chinese region and promote the co-construction and sharing of computing power infrastructure," he said.

To this end, the provincial government will join hands with Hong Kong and Macao to organize the second digital government construction conference and digital GBA development forum in Guangzhou between Dec 8 and 10.

The event is expected to become an important bridge for promoting in-depth exchange and cooperation and accelerating comprehensive digital development in the GBA, he said.

More than 3,000 government officials, academicians, experts and scholars in the field of digital government, plus senior business executives in the field of digitalization from the mainland, Hong Kong and Macao will be invited to participate in the annual event.