A local delegate to the country’s top advisory body plans to ask for measures on facilitating people flow within the Greater Bay Area, during the upcoming “Two Sessions” meetings in Beijing.

Henry Tang, who is a Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Standing Committee member, came up with a number of proposals on better integrating Hong Kong into the country’s development and the Greater Bay Area, as well as leveraging the One Country, Two Systems principle.

The former chief secretary hoped the central government would expand the multiple-entry visa scheme currently in place for Shenzhen residents.

But one “new concept”, as he put it, would be on enriching the financial system on a closed-loop basis.

“It’s not like I’m proposing to open up a giant back door to undermine the currency controls of the country, but to allow the people in the Greater Bay Area to take much better advantage of the financial instruments available in Hong Kong that are otherwise unavailable to the Shenzhen residents,” he said in the capital.

Separately, Tang said the latest budget blueprint unveiled by the SAR government had focused on stability, calling it “commendable and reasonable”.

“If you look at it from three basic principles — first is stability, second is development, and third is investing for future — they have all three parts in it,” said Tang, who formerly served as financial secretary himself.

“Generally, it is an acceptable budget, in that aspect, and that three years is a reasonably period for a forecast to return to a budget surplus.”

In Financial Secretary Paul Chan’s latest budget, he stressed containing government spending would be a top priority for the administration in the coming years as he outlined plans for job cuts, pay freezes and reducing expenditure.