The Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises will broaden the scope of target enterprises and strategically introduce more cultural and creative companies with innovation and technology elements to accelerate the vigorous development of local creative industries, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said on Sunday.

“We welcome more cultural and creative enterprises in developing their international businesses by leveraging Hong Kong’s advantages as a global platform for connectivity in terms of capital, talent, information, internationalization and professional services,” Chan said in his Sunday blog.

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As a world city blending Chinese and Western cultures with diversity and inclusivity, Hong Kong-based cultural creators understand the Chinese mainland market and have a cutting-edge international perspective, allowing them to create content and characters that resonate with the public, he said.

In the 2025-26 Budget, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government said it will support cultural and intellectual property creators and producers in advancing more than 30 cultural IP projects in the next five years. The SAR also proposed reviewing tax deduction arrangements for lump-sum royalties paid by enterprises for purchasing the right to use IP, as well as related expenses for purchasing IP or the right to use it from related parties.

The finance chief said that during the China Development Forum held in Beijing earlier this week, he visited a leading trendy cultural and creative enterprise to learn more about the incubation of cultural and creative IP products, and the company’s rich experience in IP product management and marketing.

“These IPs have spawned a large number of commodities and triggered cross-sector creations -- from animation, movies to music, toys, theme parks and even catering services. Combined with the development of smart terminals and online marketing, they have brought huge business opportunities,” he said.

“The ‘goods economy’ that has emerged on the mainland in recent years has made its related products and film and television entertainment very popular among young people, with a market size valued at hundreds of billions of yuan,” Chan said.

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To operate these cultural and creative IP products successfully, cultural creative directors must learn how to facilitate the perception and exchange of ideas between the product and the customer, bring different aspects of experience to the client, and enable the product to undergo continuous change, iteration and even innovation, he said.

Organized by the State Council’s Development Research Center, the forum has hosted hundreds of multinational corporate chairpersons, chief executives, business leaders, scholars and representatives of international organizations since 2000 to discuss the latest global development trends and potential collaboration opportunities from different perspectives, and promote broader cooperation, knowledge exchange and experience sharing.

“Global economic and social development is currently facing multiple challenges. Protectionism and policy vacillations in some Western countries have exacerbated geopolitical risks and economic fragmentation; technological innovation has triggered disruptive changes in business operations and even models; and an aging population has brought about gradual, but huge changes in the consumer demand structure and even investment preferences,” Chan said.

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“These trends will inevitably pose challenges to development, but can also create opportunities for Hong Kong. In the future, we will continue to strengthen publicity and promotion work in traditional and emerging markets, encourage enterprises from all regions to make full use of Hong Kong’s full-chain financing functions and the thriving innovation and technology ecosystem of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to accelerate business expansion and jointly achieve better development.”

Chan said Hong Kong’s advantages as an international financial center have been consolidated and enhanced, with financial technology gradually bearing fruit in recent years.

In the latest Global Financial Centers Index report released by the United Kingdom’s Z/Yen Group and the China Development Research Institute, Hong Kong’s overall score rose sharply by 11 points, ranking third worldwide.

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The Hong Kong Stock Exchange is processing more than 100 listing applications, including those from leading global companies in the new energy field.  

According to Chan, a mainland company focusing on applying artificial intelligence and smart traffic management and autonomous driving plans to set up an international business headquarter and global research and development center in the SAR, and aims to go public on the local stock market.