In May last year, I received an invitation to become a member of the Economic Advancement Expert Group of the Chief Executive’s Policy Unit (CEPU) under the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government.

Being fully aware of the magnitude of such a responsibility, I knew I would have to push myself to learn and persevere in further studies. I also envisaged that through the platform of the expert group, I would be able to interact and exchange ideas with the head, deputy heads and other members of the CEPU, as well as offer my views and suggestions to the HKSAR government.

Over the past year, the expert group has held four plenary meetings and four group meetings. I have also had the opportunity to discuss matters relating to economics and taxation policies with the head, deputy heads and officers of the CEPU during individual meetings and thematic group meetings.

One of the topics recently discussed is how to consolidate Hong Kong’s position as an international financial center.

Every economic superpower needs its own sizeable international financial center to complement its development, such as New York in the United States and London in the United Kingdom.

Being the sole international financial center in China, Hong Kong has the responsibility to capitalize on its advantages to support our country’s development.

With the increasingly widespread use of the renminbi as a settlement currency in international trading, the internationalization of the RMB has become an important strategy for our country. If Hong Kong can offer more high-quality financial products to overseas investors, we should be able to attract more overseas RMB to flow back to invest here. It will definitely help promote the internationalization of the RMB and further encourage the use of the RMB in international trade settlements.

Meanwhile, Chinese mainland enterprises are seizing the opportunities to explore the international market. Hong Kong can play a pivotal role to assist these enterprises. Hong Kong’s high quality professional service providers and bankers have a wealth of international experience. They are ready to serve mainland enterprises who intend to invest or do business overseas.

Mainland enterprises may consider setting up offshore headquarters here as command centers for their international businesses. With the assistance of our financial and professional service providers, mainland enterprises can expand abroad in a better and quicker way. The offshore headquarters will also foster Hong Kong’s growth as a hub for treasury centers.

The CEPU research teams and I share the view that in order to fully leverage Hong Kong’s advantages as a platform, the facilitation arrangements for cross border investment and financing will be a key factor. Therefore, I was pleased to see that the 2023 Policy Address specifically mentioned that Hong Kong will develop a “headquarters economy” to attract enterprises from outside Hong Kong to set up headquarters here.

The HKSAR government will assist mainland enterprises with expanding abroad. It would be profitable if feasible measures could be introduced to facilitate the “headquarters economy”, such as special arrangements for investment projects that involve the use of capital accounts.

In fact, as the country’s international financial center, Hong Kong has long played an important role in assisting mainland enterprises to draw in global capital through the Hong Kong market, and connecting the mainland and international markets under the mutual market-access regime.

In this connection, in April, the China Securities Regulatory Commission announced five measures for capital market cooperation with Hong Kong, which included encouraging leading enterprises of industries in the mainland to list in Hong Kong. I believe that this new initiative will be conducive to the future development of Hong Kong as an international financial center.

In addition, with more quality companies due to be listed in Hong Kong, the daily turnover of the city’s stock market will correspondingly increase.

It is estimated that under the prevailing stamp duty rate, for every HK$100 billion ($12.8 billion) increase in the average daily turnover of the stock market, an additional HK$50 billion of stamp duty revenue will be generated for Hong Kong annually. It will certainly help relieve the budget pressure of the HKSAR government.

The CEPU Expert Group is an ideal platform for conveying public opinion to the higher authorities. I look forward to continuing working closely with the CEPU research teams in the future and offering my views and suggestions to the HKSAR government.

The author is a member of the Hong Kong SAR Chief Executive’s Policy Unit Expert Group.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.