The 6th Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Audit Forum 2019 hosted by the Audit Office of Guangdong Province was held in Huizhou, Guangdong Province on the 6th of this month. At the invitation of organizer, the Commissioner of Audit, Ho Veng On, led a delegation to attend the Forum, and exchanged opinions with the Inspector I of the International Cooperation Department of National Audit Office (Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Affairs Office), Zhou Wenhua, the Hong Kong Audit Director, Chu Nai Cheung and the Director General of the Audit Office of Guangdong Province, Lu Rongchun, on the topics around the contribution of audit in the development of the Greater Bay Area. The Mayor of Huizhou, Liu Ji, and the Deputy Director of Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of Guangdong Province, Huang Duanlian, attended the opening ceremony. A total of 120 representatives from the audit institutions of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao participated in this Forum.

The development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is a key national strategy personally devised, planned and driven by the General Secretary, Xi Jinping. Paying great attention to this task, the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Provincial Government give it top priority in the new round of reform and opening up, and are making every effort to push it forward.

In the opening speech, Ho Veng On said that the “Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area”, which has specific chapter on developing a quality living circle for living, working and travelling, provides guidelines for the SAR Government’s policies. For the past period of time, the Commission of Audit of Macao (CA) has also strived to focus on the related work. Through expanding the scope of audit and selecting various areas to conduct performance audit, for example the areas of policy implementation, transport infrastructure, public services and the development of culture, CA promotes the implementation of a series of important policies. The audit institutions of the three regions have already had a constructive interaction, and he believe that under the promotion of the “Outline Development Plan”, we will definitely explore a new mode of joint development and thus provide new impetus for the development of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. Besides, audit institutions should stand high to overlook the general situation and understand the new characteristics, new mission, new plans and new demands of the new era deeply and precisely, in order to effectively arrange audit work under the new mode of collaborative development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Representatives from the Audit Office of Guangdong Province and the Audit Bureaus of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Huizhou and other cities also delivered thematic speeches at the forum and shared some typical audit cases, which were a good experience to the work of auditing issues related to people’s livelihood in the construction of the Greater Bay Area. The Director of Macau Audit Bureau, Neoh Hwai Beng, presented a paper entitled “A brief discussion on audit contribution to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area”.

The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao audit forum, which is a regular exchange activity between the audit institutions of this three regions, aims to improve the technique and quality of audit through studies, discussions and experience sharing. In recent years, Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao have had a deeper cooperation and have already formed a multi-level and comprehensive cooperative pattern, so the exchange platform of the audit forum is more important. In March this year, the Auditor General of the China National Audit Office (CNAO), Hu Zejun, led a delegation to visit Macao. During his visit, Ho Veng On mentioned the positive role of this forum in broadening the view of CA staff, and CNAO also recognized and supported the related work.

At this forum, the audit institutions of the three regions reached consensus on joint effort to actively promote the implementation of the development strategy of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, focus on the social welfare and people’s living standard, strengthen cooperation in many aspects, such as regular visits, information exchange, staff training and project collaboration, in order to play the role of audit in the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.