China’s Greater Bay Area Ushers In 3-Week Digital Shopping Festival

China is ushering in a three-week online shopping event targeting the economic growth center of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), according to the state-owned Xinhua News Agency and China Daily.

See also: Chinese Livestream Festival Breaks Records 

The shopping festival starts on Thursday (Sept. 2) with an opening ceremony in conjunction with China’s Ministry of Commerce, along with the provincial government of Guangdong, and the liaison offices of the central government in Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions.

Intended to strengthen both “emotional and commercial ties,” the shopping event is expected to feature over 298,000 brands and 13 million products, including food, cosmetics and appliances, per the report. Discounts will also be featured as well as “other preferential policies.”

Related: China’s Golden Week Signals Economic Uptick 

The shopping event comes as China is making plans for its annual Mid-Autumn Festival, a public holiday, on Sept. 21, which is all about bringing families together to eat. Another public holiday, National Day on Oct 1, commemorates the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, 1949. 

China’s GBA region is an economic powerhouse in China with a population of about 86 million people, which is a little more than 5 percent of China’s 1.4 billion population, according to the GBA government website. Its GDP is more than $1.7 trillion.

Read also: China Cracks Down On eCommerce Livestreaming

The Chinese government’s 13th Five-Year-Plan pointed to the GBA region as the “key driver” of technology, economic reform, and the facilitator of the Belt and Road initiative, which is a collaboration between Chinese banks and companies to fund and develop roads, power plants, 5G networks and more around the globe.

The GBA’s Pearl River Delta city cluster in Guangdong is the seat of manufacturing and is the home base for some of the country’s most known brands, per China Daily.