Shenzhen, a boomtown in south China, has great potential for cooperation with Hong Kong under a new comprehensive reform plan, experts said Wednesday.

Local authorities Tuesday unveiled the plan, approved by the State Council (cabinet), for the nation's first special economic zone of Shenzhen, which spearheaded its reform and opening-up drive.

Xu Qin, vice mayor of Shenzhen, said Shenzhen needed deeper and broader reforms to tackle challenges, including a large population, a small area and unbalanced development.

Shenzhen and Kong Kong should complement each other and build themselves jointly into an international center for logistics, trade, innovation and cultural creation, according to the plan.

"This means that cooperation in the cultural industries in the two cities has been raised to a strategic high level," said Wu Yixin, president of the Shenzhen Academy of Social Sciences. "Shenzhen and Hong Kong have their own advantages and great potential for cooperation."

Under the plan, the two cities will build and link major roads, information and energy projects to promote faster and more secure resource movements.

The Chinese government will also focus on financial reforms in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, home to the smaller of China's two stock exchanges, according to the plan.

Shenzhen will open a NASDAQ-style second board and a foreign currency and yuan bond market and develop futures trading and venture capital and buy-out funds.

The city will pilot the securitization of property and infrastructure assets and support financial innovation and boost financial supervision.

On the political front, Shenzhen will streamline overlapping administrative organizations and build a more efficient, service-oriented government. It will also seek to build a three-tier government of policy-making, implementation and supervision that can balance and complement each other.

Over the past three decades, Shenzhen's gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 3,974 times to 780.7 billion yuan (114.3 billion U.S. dollars) in 2008, while per capita GDP jumped 148 times to 89,800 yuan, official data show.

(Xinhua News Agency May 28, 2009)