Zhu Xiaodan, governor of Guangdong province, addresses the opening ceremony on Thursday. [Photo/ provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A group of senior leaders from the top 500 multinational corporations and globally known institutions met with the provincial governor of Guangdong in the province's capital Guangzhou on Thursday at a consultative conference.

They served as advisors for the southern economic powerhouse, presenting ideas of economic and social development, as the International Consultative Conference on the Future Economic Development of Guangdong opened.

The luminaries included Claudio Facchin, member of the group executive committee of ABB Group, Subra Suresh, president of Carnegie Mellon University, Douglas Muzyka, senior vice president of DuPont and Hiroaki Nakanishi, chairman and CEO of Hitachi Ltd.

Guangdong governor Zhu Xiaodan said advisors' opinions have proved effective and efficient to the province’s overall development.

"Guangdong will stick to innovation-driven development as the core strategy and accelerate the establishment of an open-ended regional innovation system," he said.

Several major projects, including ABB’s integrated research and development center for urban rail traffic system in Guangzhou, ABB’s robot manufacturing facility in Zhuhai, BP's PTA project in Zhuhai and a Sino-German metal eco project in Jieyang, have been established since 2013, according to Zhu.

"Establishment of the projects proved the benefit of advisors’ contributions to lifting the level of industrial technology, education, training and social development, and also to enhancing the cooperation between Guangdong and advisors' industries," said Zhu.