With the high-profile Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) charting the future of the next decade, Hong Kong’s role as a “super-connector” and “super value-adder” is taking on new significance, as top officials from the Chinese mainland and the special administrative region lauded the city’s entrenched status as a premier regional business and commercial hub and a pivotal link to the rest of the world.
In the first decade of the initiative, the city’s external trade with economies involved in the BRI — other than the Chinese mainland — surged by almost 60 percent — 3.8 times the growth rate of its trade with all economies, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu told the ninth Belt and Road Summit in Hong Kong on Wednesday.
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Numbers speak volumes. In 2023 alone, BRI economies accounted for more than 43 percent of Hong Kong’s external trade, in value, with the rest of the world, other than the Chinese mainland. This stands in stark contrast to less than one-third in 2013, Lee noted.
“Hong Kong, the nation’s most open and international city, is perfectly positioned to play a pivotal role in realizing the visionary goal of the Belt and Road Initiative,” Lee said in his opening address. “Thanks to the unique ‘one country, two systems’ principle, Hong Kong is the only world city that enjoys both the country’s advantage and the global advantage.”
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As a tribute to the 75th anniversary of the nation’s founding, the summit is being held with the theme “Building a Connected, Innovative and Green Belt and Road”.
The theme came as a strong response to the eight major steps announced by President Xi Jinping at the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing last year to support the collective pursuit of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation with participating countries.
The two-day summit, jointly organized by the HKSAR government and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, has drawn nearly 6,000 participants from 70 countries and regions. More than 300 delegates representing 38 state-owned enterprises from the mainland joined the gathering, making it the largest-ever delegation from state-owned enterprises since the establishment of the annual event in 2016.
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Li Yongjie, deputy international trade representative of the Ministry of Commerce of China, said unremitting efforts and unwavering commitment would be made to enhance Hong Kong’s long-cherished edge as a world-renowned center in finance, shipping and trade, for its bigger role in bolstering the country’s Belt and Road vision.
She said the central government would offer staunch support for the city’s pursuit of membership in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership free trade agreement.
Riding high on the undertakings to press ahead with the BRI, Xiao Weiming, deputy secretary-general of the National Development and Reform Commission of China, told the conference that Hong Kong’s indispensable connectivity and impeccable strength will come to the fore and be given full play with the new chapter of the Belt and Road story.
