Hong Kong can play a role as a key business facilitator during the economic transformation of ASEAN, the Middle East, and the Chinese mainland, veteran business leader Jonathan Choi Koon-shum tells Oswald Chan.

As the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region consolidates its business links with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Middle East, the city’s professional services sector has a pivotal role to play in accelerating these bonds, says Hong Kong business titan Jonathan Choi Koon-shum.

Professional services will be in great demand from Middle Eastern countries as their real-estate development booms, contends Choi, chairman of the Hong Kong Chinese General Chamber of Commerce. He also heads the Hong Kong-based conglomerate Sunwah Group, whose operations span the seafood-and-foodstuff, real-estate, financial services, technology, media, infrastructure, education and training, as well as green technology and healthcare industries.

There will be huge market potential for Hong Kong service providers if the central government allows our service providers to start operating in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The point is that Hong Kong-based service providers should seize these opportunities as the mainland gradually opens up its market.

Jonathan Choi Koon-shum, chairman of the Hong Kong Chinese General Chamber of Commerce

The special administrative region has developed a suite of property and construction-related professional services, such as town planning, architecture, engineering, consultation, and smart-city technologies, aided by a robust and thriving property market, and financial connectivity will be a major business interaction between Hong Kong and the Middle East.

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With the advent of the digital and green economy, ASEAN member states need smart-city technologies, artificial intelligence and data science expertise, as well as the Chinese mainland’s new energy technologies, to propel green and digital economic transformation.

Opportunities nearby

“Hong Kong’s professional services can fuel the bonds between ASEAN and Hong Kong not only in such services, but also in trade and traditional segments ranging from finance, real-estate construction and mercantile goods trade to emerging sectors like new energy,” says Choi, who is also a Standing Committee member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference — the nation’s top political advisory body.

For ASEAN, Hong Kong’s economic role is more important than ever. “Hong Kong is the connector, investor and operator, investing in and managing projects in the regional bloc.”

The theme of Hong Kong enterprises’ capital investment in ASEAN countries is even more far-reaching. The grouping is seeing an array of traditional manufacturing businesses emerging, such as garments and electronics factories, fueled by a regionalization trend in the production process, as more mainland companies relocate their manufacturing bases to Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam amid Sino-US trade frictions in the past few years.

For the mainland, apart from the traditional professional service sectors like accounting and legal arbitration, new professional sectors from Hong Kong are being sought.

“The middle class on the mainland has strong demand for new professional services, covering the tertiary education, vocational training and medical fields, such as consultation, prescription and medical equipment. Cultural services like operas and musical concerts form another new professional services segment,” Choi tells China Daily.

“There will be huge market potential for Hong Kong service providers if the central government allows our service providers to start operating in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The point is that Hong Kong-based service providers should seize these opportunities as the mainland gradually opens up its market.”

Updating maritime services

What is important for Hong Kong is the creation of a high value-added maritime services hub comprising ship management, ship broking, ship finance, maritime insurance, and law.

“Take London, for instance — its container port no longer relies on strong container throughput. It now excels in various high-end professional maritime services. Hong Kong has to cultivate talents in maritime law, ship leasing and finance, insurance, transaction brokerage, and maritime legal case arbitration,” Choi suggests.

“In the past, the Greater Bay Area’s re-exports trade was mainly conducted through Hong Kong. The situation has now changed, with shipments of mainland exports and overseas imports skipping Hong Kong port as the mainland does more direct trade with overseas countries, creating an immediate (negative) effect on Hong Kong.”

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Major container ports in the 11-city cluster Greater Bay Area include Yantian, Nansha, Shekou, Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Amid deeper integration, various ports in the region should strengthen digitalization, automation, and standardization of customs clearance procedures. While Hong Kong port has lower container throughput, it can focus on high value-added maritime services.

Choi says the authorities should have high-level design planning on the position of each port in the Greater Bay Area to avert vicious competition by leveraging the strengths of each port. The port authorities should formulate a holistic strategy for the ports concerning integration, digitization, and automation.

Once the world’s busiest container port during much of the 1980s and 1990s, a position it last held in 2005, Hong Kong dropped out of global 10 busiest ports rankings for the first time last year.

The city’s port now ranks 11th, according to shipping industry data provider Alphaliner. The freight volume handled plummeted 14.1 percent year-on-year to 14.3 million twenty-foot equivalent units due to stiff competition from mainland ports.

Leung Chun-ying, former Hong Kong chief executive and a vice-chairman of the CPPCC National Committee, has proposed that Hong Kong concentrate on developing a full-fledged high value-added maritime services hub like London to make up for the economic decline.

Contact the writer at oswald@chinadailyhk.com