Senior Guangdong provincial leaders met with Hong Kong's Chief Executive Donald Tsang and legislators on Sunday night, who were on a two-day visit in the Pearl River Delta area.

Zhang Dejiang, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and secretary of the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee, and provincial governor Huang Huahua exchanged cordially with the group led by Donald Tsang.

Zhang briefed the visitors on the development in Guangdong, which is now China's biggest economic powerhouse and was slotted the 23th in the country's GDP ranking in 1978. The province attributed the success to the country's economic reform and opening up.

"Guangdong's economic development has been strongly supported by Hong Kong, and the development of Guangdong has also contributed to Hong Kong's prosperity and stability," said Zhang, citing the facts that 70 percent of Hong Kong's cargo volume was derived from Guangdong and 50 percent of tourists to Hong Kong were from Guangdong.

He said Guangdong has learned from its past experience that the economic building should maintain as the priority of its policy. He advised Hong Kong to stick to the economic building so as to reinforce its role as an international financial, trade and traffic hub.

It is the first time that all HK's legislators were invited to visit the mainland as a group. The group includes Legislative Council President Rita Fan the co-leader, Secretary for Financial Services & the Treasury Frederick Ma and the Secretary for Commerce and Industry & Technology John Tsang and 59 lawmakers.

Tsang said the cooperation mechanism in the Pan Pearl River Delta region has taken shape over the past year. He hoped the group's visit would boost the endeavor and mutual understanding in the region.

The group will continue the trip in Guangzhou and Zhongshan cities before returning to Hong Kong on Monday.

(Xinhua News Agency September 26, 2005)