The 15th National Games -- co-hosted by Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong for the first time -- got off to a rousing start on Sunday night as President Xi Jinping declared the Games open at a spectacular curtain-raiser in Guangzhou.

Xi and other dignitaries, including International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry and honorary president for life Thomas Bach, attended the opening ceremony at the Guangdong Olympic Sports Centre.

At the athletes parade, rower Chiu Hin-chun served as Hong Kong's flag-bearer as delegations from the three co-hosting regions banded together.

Guangdong party boss Huang Kunming, Macau Chief Executive Sam Hou-fai and Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee each delivered speeches.

Lee said it's an honour for Hong Kong to co-host the Games for the first time since its return to the motherland, and that serving as co-hosts with Macau and Guangdong showed the country's unwavering support for the development of the Greater Bay Area.

Top athletes from the co-hosting regions – Hong Kong's Olympic fencing champion Edgar Cheung, Macau wushu artist Li Yi and track-and-field star Su Bingtian from Guangdong – shared the honour of lighting the National Games cauldron.

In his meeting with Coventry and Bach, Xi said the National Games is China's largest-scale and highest-level multi-sport event.

The president noted that the Greater Bay Area is one of the country's most open and economically dynamic regions, and the goal of promoting its development is to make it into a strategic underpinning for China's new development paradigm, a demonstration area for high-quality development, and a pacesetter of Chinese modernisation, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Xi also expressed confidence that the National Games will showcase not only China's new sporting achievements in the new era, but also the remarkable progress of Chinese modernisation in the Greater Bay Area.

The opening ceremony, lasting about an hour and a half, also featured artistic performances and spectacular fireworks displays.

The Games run till November 21.