Chang Zhipeng

57589527@qq.com

HONG KONG fashion designer Ruby Fang said she is lucky and grateful for having Qianhai and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) platforms in chasing her dream, after being honored at an award ceremony for outstanding young GBA entrepreneurs yesterday.

She was among a total of 79 young entrepreneurs from the GBA who were honored at the ceremony held simultaneously in Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macao yesterday afternoon.

They shared six awards of Outstanding Young Entrepreneurs, Best Entrepreneurship Project, Best Technological Innovation Project, Best Commercial Service Provider, Best Entrepreneur with Social Responsibility, and Best Cultural Creativity Project.

Among the 34 young entreprenuers awarded at the Shenzhen ceremony, 15 are employed by Shenzhen-based companies and nearly one-third come from Hong Kong and Macao.

Fang, winner of the Best Cultural Creativity Project award, said she moved her company into a startup incubator in Qianhai several months ago.

She grew up in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong and often went to the theater with her grandpa when she was a child.

“I was obsessed with the gorgeous costumes made of Chaozhou embroidery and often sneaked into the backstage to observe them. Since then, this breed of costume beauty has been buried deep in my heart,” Fang said.

Currently, Fang has established her own brand and is striving to combine Chaozhou embroidery with modern fashion design and tailoring. “Qianhai is an ideal place for entrepreneurship and I believe I can realize my dream by relying on the advantages of Qianhai and the GBA,” she said.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam; Tan Tieniu, deputy director of the Central People’s Government’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong; Ai Xuefeng, Shenzhen vice mayor; and Zhang Xin, vice governor of Guangdong Province, attended the ceremony in three cities.

At the Shenzhen ceremony, Ai said young entrepreneurs have become the backbone of China’s quality and high-level reform and innovation, and they shoulder new historical missions. The newly released plan for further developing the Qianhai cooperation zone is an important innovative effort to support the economic and social development of Hong Kong, enhance the level of cooperation between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, and build a new pattern of opening up. Ai urged the young entrepreneurs to seize new opportunities and integrate into the overall development of the country.

Xu Hang, executive vice president of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Entrepreneurs Union, urged young entrepreneurs to make greater contributions to the construction of the GBA.