"Trivial, urgent, and difficult things" facing residents will be even more intensely addressed by the city as Zhuhai becomes a Guangdong Province model for quality of life and happiness.

Recently, the provincial government issued a report supporting high-level educational resources and medical services, and a youth-friendly environment in Zhuhai. In recent years, Zhuhai has strongly positioned itself for this model role.

For instance, local livelihood expenditures totaled 193.6 billion yuan ($30.3 billion) over the past five years – 70 percent of the General Public Budget expenditure. The related annual expense increased from 28.4 billion yuan ($4.4 billion yuan) in 2016 to 46.11 billion yuan ($7.2 billion) in 2020.

Fifty-one public kindergartens were built during the period to enroll an additional 42,000 preschool children. Furthermore, 45 primary and secondary schools were added to house 51,000 students. Zhuhai now has 10 institutions of higher education while 604 kindergartens and schools offer 12-year free education.  

Landscape installation on Yeli Island stating: 2021 – Going for a Better Life [Photo by Zhong Fan / Zhuhai Daily]

On a quest to become a high-level regional medical center, the city is sharing medical resources and exploring cross-border health insurance with Macao. It pioneered in allowing Macao people living in Hengqin New Area to take part in local medical insurance in July 2019, and the scope was extended to Hong Kong and Taiwan residents of Zhuhai in January 2020.

Zhuhai People's Hospital Medical Treatment Group, 5th Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong TCM Hospital, and Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese & Western Medicine served more than 260,000 Macao patients last year. The first 53 Macao doctors also settled at the Hengqin Branch of Zhuhai People's Hospital. This year, the city will invest 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) to optimize medical resource allocations, making them more balanced in different areas. 

Meanwhile, Zhuhai will spend 300 million yuan ($46.9 million) on issues that residents pay the most attention to and are benefited by the most – a Number 1 priority among the city's Top 10 Livelihood Projects for 2021. Locals can file petitions and trace solution progress and feedback online. Changes are evident – such as better utilization of idle spaces in neighborhoods, solutions to travel inconvenience, care for elderly who live alone, and after-class trusteeship of children.   

According to the 7th national population census, those aged 15 to 59 account for 74.12 percent of Zhuhai's permanent residents, and the average age of local residents is 34.8. More young people will be attracted to the city under the Zhuhai Medium & Long-Term Youth Development Plan (2020-25).

Zhuhai and Macao youth federations set up a normalized communication mechanism last year and will organize Zhuhai-Macao Youth Talent Study & Exchange Camps and summer internships for Macao university students in Hengqin. In addition, a proposed Greater Bay Area Youth Home and Hong Kong-Macao Sci-Tech Achievement Transformation Base will bring more young people to live and work in Zhuhai.