DELEGATES from 10 Macao-based English and Portuguese media outlets visited Shenzhen’s landmarks and technology companies yesterday, concluding their four-day tour of mainland cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), which began Sunday.

The delegation’s itinerary in Shenzhen included the office of UBTECH Robotics Corp. Ltd. at Nanshan I Park at Xili Subdistrict in Nanshan District; the “Great Tides Surge Along the Pearl River: 40 Years of Reform and Opening Up in Guangdong” exhibition at the Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning in Futian District; the Huawei Base in Longgang District; and the BYD headquarters in Pingshan District.

At the door of the UBTECH exhibition hall, José Carlos Matias, who is the director of Macau Business Media — an English-based publisher specialized in business and economic news, was surprised to receive a can of coke fetched by the panda-inspired humanoid robot “Yoyo.” “I have already made a lot of friends during this trip. Today, I even made friends with a robot!” he joked.

Matias is the leader of the media delegation and felt that the visit to high-tech enterprises in Shenzhen would be a nice way to wrap up their four-day GBA tour. “Each city in the GBA has its own function and level of specialization,” he said. “In Shenzhen, we felt that we are already in an advanced stage of development in many ways and sectors through seeing multipurpose robots and visiting tech enterprises such as BYD and Huawei. I believe that Macao is now in a good situation for further cooperating with Shenzhen and other GBA cities to move towards a more diversified business model, and high technology is one of the key areas we are working on.”

Andreia Sofia Silva, a journalist from the Hoje Macau Portuguese newspaper, was mesmerized by a “Cruzr” humanoid service robot dancing to a pop song. “It is interesting to know that nowadays robots can help us in our daily lives such as entertaining and taking care of elderly people,” she said.

Guilherme Rego, managing director of Plataforma Macau, a bilingual weekly newspaper published in Portuguese and Chinese, said that this is his first visit to Shenzhen, but he is already impressed by the city’s high-tech industry and its balance between socioeconomic development and ecological environment.

“It’s amazing to know that kids here are already using high technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) in school on a daily basis,” Rego said. “Knowing that education in Shenzhen is keeping pace with development is what impressed me the most.”

During the four-day tour, Rego used the buzzword “quality development” to describe the momentum of the GBA. “The GBA is a huge cluster with all kinds of development going on, but they also remain respectful of what is already there, like nature. It is important to balance development with the sustainability of the whole area,” he said.

The delegation also visited historical and cultural landmarks, tech enterprises and research institutions in Guangzhou, Shaoguan and Dongguan before coming to Shenzhen.