The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region will maintain its international financial, shipping and trade hub status, while leveraging its technological prowess and talent pool to complement the manufacturing power of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area for developing new quality productive forces.
Political heavyweights such as Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po and Zheng Yanxiong, the director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong SAR, laid out their vision for Hong Kong at a seminar organized by the city’s various business chambers focusing on President Xi Jinping’s recent letter to a group of businesspeople with roots in Ningbo.
At the Tuesday seminar, Zheng also read out guidelines from Xia Baolong’s and pointed out that it is necessary to combine the spirit of the president’s reply with the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee. Xia is the director of the Hong Kong and Macao Work Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office.
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“We will continue to consolidate and enhance Hong Kong’s status as an international financial, shipping, and trade center, create a gathering place for high-end international talents, improve the mechanism for Hong Kong and Macao to better play a role in the country’s opening-up, and promote the GBA to better play its role as a source of high-quality development for facilitating the development of new quality productive forces,” Zheng read out Xia’s guidance.
Chan said Hong Kong will continue to play its unique role as a two-way platform for promoting high-quality development.
In the complex external environment, Hong Kong enterprises and even financial institutions must recognize, respond to, and seek change. “While continuing to deeply explore the original traditional market, in line with the national development strategy, Hong Kong will actively explore the markets of “Belt and Road” and global southern countries, become their financial, trade and transnational supply chain management center, and provide them with high-quality offshore renminbi services and professional services,” he said.
The finance chief added that the HKSAR government is making every effort to attract talents by encouraging companies to provide internationally competitive remuneration packages and development opportunities, creating a favorable working environment, and establishing an international exchange platform for local and overseas talents.
In areas of innovation and technology, Chan highlighted “Hong Kong is making every effort to develop areas such as life and health technology, artificial intelligence and data science, advanced manufacturing and new energy technology, and the city must make good use of the huge opportunities in the GBA, develop Hong Kong and other GBA cities in parallel, and jointly build a more complete and globally competitive innovation and technology industry chain.”
In facilitating the country to promote high-quality development, Zheng emphasized Hong Kong should play the role of a stakeholder, a player, a contributor and an innovator.
He added that in the 27 years since Hong Kong’s return to the motherland, the city has attracted nearly 37-fold growth in foreign direct investment and nearly 35-fold growth in overseas direct investment, which is directly attributed by the country’s reform and opening-up.
“Hong Kong has the basic strength to serve the overall situation of the country’s reform and opening-up, including upholding the spirit of the rule of law, making good use of the city’s common law system, Chinese and English language proficiency, and service professionals; as well as utilizing Hong Kong’s technology and innovation and talent pool to connect industries in the GBA,” Zheng noted.
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Zheng emphasized Hong Kong should give its internationalization full play in promoting the country’s opening-up: “Hong Kong hosts the foreign capital that understands the mainland best, the most well-connected foreign businessmen, and the most risk-averse foreign companies. These can actively attract international investors and various types of capital in jointly exploring and deepening the mainland market.”
In July, the president replied to a letter from Hong Kong businesspeople with ancestral roots in Ningbo, including representatives such as Chao Kee-young and Pao Pui-hing, the daughter of the late shipping mogul Pao Yue-kong. They recently wrote to Xi to highlight the efforts they are making to support national development, and expressed their resolve to serve the nation’s modernization.
In his reply, Xi praised the contributions they are making to the development of their hometown and the country through their active engagement in innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as through their donations to education.
