Alex Yeung Ching-loong, a Hong Kong member of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and chairman of the Hong Kong United Youth Association. GBA briefs
(PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
A new Hong Kong member of the nation’s top political advisory body called for accelerating the recovery of cross-border youth communication between Hong Kong and Macao with the Chinese mainland, and encouraged the SARs’ youth and young adults to actively embrace the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as cross-border travel has fully resumed.
Alex Yeung Ching-loong, a Hong Kong member of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and chairman of the Hong Kong United Youth Association, made the remarks in an interview with China Daily on Tuesday.
A new face on the nation’s top political advisory body, Yeung has prioritized expanding cross-border youth exchanges in the post-pandemic era, and submitted a proposal on this issue.
With the governments taking the leading role, he hopes more initiatives can be launched to promote youth exchanges, such as increasing the funding for related projects, simplifying procedures of applying entry permits, and extending the allowed length of exchange-group visits.
He also hopes that the content of the communication activities could be more interesting and cater more to the practical needs of the young people.
To further deepen such interaction, the youth leader vowed to work with all sectors of Hong Kong to provide them with better opportunities in work, study and engage in cross-border exchanges.
This year, the association will resume the offline internship program with the Palace Museum in Beijing to offer participants more firsthand experience. A flagship program of the federation, the exchange activity has been active for over a decade although it had to shift online during the pandemic.
The association also strengthened cooperation with many different enterprises, especially in the Greater Bay Area, to provide job opportunities for college students in the financial, scientific-innovation and cultural industries.
To help local youths address their housing problem, the association will actively help the SAR government advance the Youth Hostel Scheme, Yeung said. The association also plans to convert the Hotel Ease in Causeway Bay into a 98-room youth hostel to provide an affordable and comfortable living space for eligible visitors.
Yeung also said that compared with Hong Kong, mainland cities in the Greater Bay Area can offer cheaper labor and rent, and a vast market — favorable conditions for Hong Kong young entrepreneurs to start businesses.
He called on them to actively seize the chance to resume travel and seek a broader development stage in mainland cities of the GBA, highlighting fresh opportunities in the culture, inno-tech and financial sectors.
Yeung, who is also the executive director of Emperor International Holdings, also said that the release of Chinese science-fiction blockbuster Wandering Earth II in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is a great opportunity to showcase the advancement of Chinese film technologies and the Chinese way of solving global crises to Hong Kong youngsters and other overseas audience.
Emperor Motion Pictures, a branch of Yeung’s company, is the exclusive overseas distributor and co-producer of the film. The movie was released in Malaysia and Singapore in addition to Hong Kong, Yeung said. Some Hong Kong youth groups also collaborated with his company to give out free tickets of the movie to local youngsters.
Yeung said the gist of the movie echoes much of President Xi Jinping’s vision of building “a community with a shared future for mankind”. Yeung said he hopes to bring more high-quality Chinese movies to HKSAR audiences in the future.