A senior Chinese official encouraged offshore companies to make the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area an important destination for their investment layout and an important base for global operations.

Huang Kunming, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said, "There are huge development spaces and broad prospects in the GBA, as technological innovation and industrial upgrading are accelerating which is promoting the cultivation of new quality productivity."

"And the vast market contains greater possibilities," Huang, also Party secretary of Guangdong province, made his remarks at his keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the 2023 Global Investment Promotion Conference for The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, on Wednesday.

He said he welcomes foreign investors and business representatives to settle down in the GBA and share the GBA's development dividends.

Guangdong is joining hands with bordering Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions to construct and create a market-oriented, rule-based and internationalized first-class business environment, he said.

Wang Wentao, Minister of Commerce, said his ministry would continue to support the opening and development of the GBA and promote the GBA to become a strategic fulcrum of the new development pattern, a demonstration area for high-level opening up and high-quality development and a leading place for the Chinese path to modernization.

The event, which is jointly hosted by the governments of Guangdong province, Hong Kong and Macao has now become a platform for Sino-foreign cooperation and overseas companies to seek investment opportunities.

Jacob Aarup-Andersen, CEO of Danish brewer Carlsberg Group, said the GBA provides a favorable business environment with a high level of economic prosperity, robust consumer power and favorable demographic structure.

Carlsberg established its first China brewery in Huizhou, Guangdong and its China head office in Guangzhou.

It is building a brewery with an annual capacity of 5 million hectoliters in Foshan, Guangdong, he said.

The 27th brewery in China, the Foshan facility is expected to go into operation by the second quarter of 2024.

It will have a Carlsberg R&D center, which is the first such center outside of Europe, he added.