Economic and Social Innovation for Ecological Civilization

Global Innovation Index Database, WIPO, 2024

Analysis

GBA’s Framework Agreement for the economic and social integration of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau was to develop the GBA into a dynamic economy, towards an Ecological Civilization: an ideal place for living, working and travelling, and a powerhouse of economic development, productivity and industrial innovation.

Less than a decade on, the GBA is hitting highs on global economic and innovation indicators that provides evidence of the success of those policies and promises.

As reported in China Daily late last month, 23 companies in the Greater Bay Area have made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list, up from 22 in 2024. Fortune China released these global rankings at the end of July and also reported on the 130 companies across China on the list. With a combined $10.7 trillion in revenue, these Chinese companies account for 26 percent of the total revenue of the Global 500 companies! In comparison, the USA topped this number with 138 companies.

China Daily quoted Wang Zhile, a Fortune Global 500 list editor, who suggested Chinese companies are now dealing with the next challenge of scaling from “big” to “strong”. He pointed out that this transition requires more than technological innovation.

Strategic management, compliance management and other soft power capacities are critical to future advancements. Wang’s words underpin earlier arguments in these pages that capital comes in many forms – physical capital, social capital, creative capital, environmental capital, educational capital, human capital – and all are required in the building of this great vision of the GBA. Fortune 500-type indicators are just that, indicators of the underlying capacity building that has occurred to date.

Another intervening outcome sought by growth pundits that contributes to the economic success such as seen in the Fortune Global 500 list is innovation in all its forms. This enterprise-, industry- and individual-level capacity is part of a toolkit that Zhu Wei, executive deputy director of the GBA office in Guandong, suggested in 2024 the GBA successfully delivered: transport integration, zones of cooperation and market integration.

The Science and Technology clusters ranking in the Global Innovation Index 2024 agrees with the assessment that the current circumstances of the GBA has delivered those capacities. In the 2024 Top 100 S&T clusters, Tokyo–Yokohama (Japan) came out as the top performing group, with Shenzhen–Hong Kong–Guangzhou  at number 2, a position the area also held in 2023.

The first metric in that particular sub-index draws upon the location of inventors listed in published patent applications. The second metric, which pertains better to Macau given its current narrow base of economic activity, considers the location of published authors of scientific articles.

Macau lags behind this cluster even as part of the GBA but shows signs of promise as Macau entered the rankings in 2024 as Macao Special Administrative Region of China–Zhuhai (Macao SAR–Zhuhai) in 100th place! S&T clusters are typically home to a unique combination of and collaboration between good universities, brilliant scientists, R&D-intensive companies, and prolific inventors.

Macau’s appearance in the index was mainly due to the growth in published scientific articles: Zhang and Frazer were right on the button when in 2022 they recommended one way for Macau to overcome its difficulty achieving economic diversification and to identify an important role for itself in the GBA was to develop higher education as a catalyst to strengthening industry, infrastructure and social improvement.

At the broader Global Innovation Index level in 2024, China sits at the top in the upper-middle income group for performance above expectation for its level of development; clearly a Global Leader in innovation in 2024. China is 11th overall in global rankings and 3rd in regional ranking.

WIPO Statistics Database, May 2024

The Global Innovation Tracker is where some key insights can be gleaned about the future of the GBA. Not only does it identify “robust national innovation ecosystems”, the tracker provides an analysis of the current state of innovation, with the findings giving us an idea about progress across four stages: science and innovation investment, technological progress, technology adoption, and the socioeconomic impact of innovation. Note that the first stage is where the GBA has achieved well on the 100S&T Clusters Index these last two years.

China now has more S&T clusters in this index (26) than the United States with 20 clusters, and the two fastest growing clusters also are in China. All the above offers clear indication of strong underlying capacity building in innovation and subsequent economic and social development.

The final stage measures labour productivity, poverty, life expectancy and global warming – all measures that are important policy considerations towards China’s Ecological Civilization. As the GBA moves through the stages and along the trajectory through economic development and opening up, the human, social and environmental elements will be where incremental returns will be found, putting the final touches to the GBA vision.

Recent research from the Macao Polytechnic University on policies promoting youth innovation and entrepreneurship found that Zhuhai’s policies lean towards supporting entrepreneurial youth from Macau with material, human, technological, social and public service capital support. Although not sufficient for ongoing human capital and social capital development, these incubation and collaboration schemes act as springboards for more robust and institutionalised methods of social and community innovation.

The Special Theme of The World Intellectual Property Organization in 2024 was Social Entrepreneurship and its anticipated role in transformative innovation and social impact. We are already seeing some Social Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation development in the GBA with Zhongshan E-park being one example of a Hong Kong and Macao Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship base. Social entrepreneurs develop and fund solutions to social issues whilst functioning long-term in the market economy.

Innovation is where we are currently seeing the heavy lifting in the GBA toward economic development: concerted investment into Social Innovation promises similar success outcomes through novel business models to find solutions to GBA’s economic, social and environmental concerns and to meet the promises of ecological conservation and a quality living circle as an ideal place for living, working and travelling.