The province will also roll out a one-stop online portal that integrates with the Hong Kong government’s iAM Smart app, which will allow people and businesses on both sides of the border to access a host of digital public services.

Areas to be covered by the three-year digital Greater Bay Area plan include travel, catering, telecoms, electronic payments, jobseeking, elderly care, medical services, education, insurance and welfare, including social security payments.

The blueprint also promises to afford holders of home return permits – the travel document Hongkongers use to cross the border – the same status that Guangdong residents enjoy in obtaining public services and business registrations.

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Lawmaker Kingsley Wong Kwok, of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, said the new measures would provide greater convenience for Hongkongers in accessing online mainland services more quickly, such as public transport ticketing, medical service bookings and insurance policy purchases, as well as the use of automated gates at airports for immigration clearance.

“Since the mainland system doesn’t recognise Hong Kong’s home return permits, many Hongkongers complained to us that they can’t use them as a form of identity authentication to make online purchases on the mainland, such as for high-speed rail tickets and insurance policies,” he said.

“Also, people using the home return permits can’t use the automated gates at the mainland airports for faster immigration clearance. All these have caused a lot of inconvenience for people crossing the border and trying to acquire mainland services.”

Wong pointed out that the mutual recognition of electronic signatures would allow residents to carry out business online on the other side of the border, such as company registration or property purchases.

“All the cross-border business dealings including signing legal documents could be conducted online without the need to attend in-person sessions,” he said.

Wong added the new measures would greatly enhance the flow of people and economic activities between Hong Kong and the mainland.

“No doubt the measures will largely boost the flow of people, goods and services between the two places with greater connectivity and integration of the two systems,” he said.

The lawmaker suggested mainland authorities also extend the unification process to parts of the country beyond the Greater Bay Area, Beijing’s ambitious plan to integrate Hong Kong, Macau and nine southern mainland cities into an economic powerhouse.

“The new measures are only confined to the bay area,” he said. “The measures should be extended so people can enjoy the same level of convenience in other parts of the nation.”

Hong Kong residents in the bay area can register for or upgrade to iAM Smart in Guangdong province to access the cross-boundary services through the website and the Yueshengshi mobile app.

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Raymond Yip Chak-yan, chief liaison officer of the Guangzhou Nansha Service Centre in Hong Kong, said the new approach would ensure residents enjoyed the same privileges as Guangdong ones.

“For example, Hong Kong youth working there could enjoy a special allowance of 515,000 yuan [US$72,375] after three years, while being entitled to social security benefits at the same time,” he said, referring to the payment that workers in Nansha can receive after working there for the prescribed number of years.

Yip envisaged that the unified measures could further expand the one-hour living circle and attract talent to both sides.

“Each place will complement the other, with the abundant land, resources and manpower of the mainland supporting Hong Kong,” he said. “The new measures will greatly enhance the one-hour living circle as it will be convenient for people to live on the mainland and work in Hong Kong or vice versa to save costs or get cheaper services.”

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Economist Simon Lee Siu-po, an honorary fellow at Chinese University’s Asia-Pacific Institute of Business, was among those who have found crossing the border inconvenient given Hong Kong’s system was still not compatible with the mainland’s.

“For me, the greater inconvenience is that I can’t use my home return permit to use an automated gate for faster immigration clearance at mainland airports,” said Lee, who regularly travels over the border to teach. “Whenever I go to the mainland I need to follow a long queue for manual clearance.

“Also, I wasn’t allowed to buy concert tickets on the mainland with my home return permits because their system doesn’t recognise our identity documents, which is a turn-off for me.”

While agreeing that the new measures would bring greater convenience for people of both sides to cross the border, Lee also warned of the risk of Hong Kong losing some of its economic uniqueness by further integrating with the mainland.

“With greater integration and convenience travelling between the two places, there is a risk of dragging Hong Kong prices down to the mainland level, such as for property and wages,” he warned. “This will greatly impact the competitiveness of Hong Kong as the distinction between the city and the mainland becomes blurred.”