NANNING, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) will continue to strengthen cooperation with members of the Pan-Pearl River Delta (PPRD) region to jointly push forward economic development, said the SAR's financial chief Thursday.

Leong Vai Tac, secretary for economy and finance of the Macao SAR government made the remarks when meeting Lu Xinshe, secretary of the CPC Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Regional Committee, at the 2019 Pan-Pearl River Delta Regional Cooperation and Development Forum that opened Thursday in Nanning, capital of Guangxi.

"The traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) industry is an emerging industry in Macao, and Guangxi has abundant TCM resources. We have good cooperation prospects in the health industry," Leong said.

A pilot free trade zone unveiling ceremony was held in August in Guangxi, and the region hopes to deeply promote cooperation with Macao in areas of financial cooperation and international trade, Lu said.

So far, Macao and Guangxi have cooperated in areas including tourism, environmental protection, business and trade convention and the culture industry. Statistics show that Macao has invested in 349 enterprises in Guangxi, with a contract capital of 611 million U.S. dollars since a cooperation mechanism between Guangxi and Macao was established in 2014.

The PPRD region, which covers a geographical area that produces around one-third of the country's GDP, includes Hainan, Yunnan, Hunan, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Fujian, Sichuan and Guizhou provinces and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region as well as Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions.

The forum, which began in 2004, aims to stimulate the economy within the PPRD region. The combined GDP of the region reached 31.72 trillion yuan (4.44 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2018, five times that of 2004.