Amid the changes brought by geopolitics, volatility and uncertainty in today’s multipolar world, Hong Kong needs to reinvent itself, focusing on redefining its superconnector role, embracing mindset changes, building capacity and finding a new growth trajectory in innovation and technology, supply-chain management, and business services, panelists said at the Mastermind Roundtable organized by China Daily on Tuesday.

Themed “Thought Leaders Dialogue: Resilience and Reinvention: Hong Kong’s New Growth Trajectory”, the roundtable was attended by government officials, scholars, business leaders, entrepreneurs and thought leaders who shared their insights into Hong Kong’s transformational journey.

“Hong Kong is in the midst of changes, and all of you talk about how Hong Kong people embrace change, and manage and lead change to make Hong Kong a much better society and city and even a better home for us,” said Edward Tse, founder and chief executive officer at Gao Feng Advisory Company, who was also the moderator of the roundtable.

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Edward Chen Kwan-yiu, honorary professor at the HKU Business School and fellow of the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong, said that Hong Kong should embrace mentality changes by shifting its focus to the Global South countries, including countries in the Middle East, Latin America, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Nations) and even Central Asia.

“What should not be changed is that Hong Kong should keep its intermediary functions in performing its superconnector role, but the city needs to think what to connect to, how to connect and with whom to connect. These are questions we have to keep in mind,” Chen said.

HKGolden50 Founder Franklin Lam said that Hong Kong has to boost its business capacity to exploit business opportunities arising from the economic growth of the Chinese mainland, adding that Hong Kong’s professional services will be in huge demand when the city opens up, given that the demand for such services has been driven up by the mainland’s economic growth.

Charles Li Xiaojia, founder and chairman of Micro Connect, said Hong Kong should aim to become a metropolis of 10 million people driven by technology talent, with a revolutionary financial exchange system.

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Li called for a dramatic expansion of the city’s population and identified two key groups of potential immigrants: “Technology professionals from the Chinese mainland who want to (move overseas), and hundreds of thousands of technology people around the globe who want to return to the country but not directly to the Chinese mainland. Hong Kong can be their home.”

Panelists agreed that Hong Kong should find new growth engines in the I&T, supply-chain and business services sectors.

Allen Yeung, founder, CEO and strategic advisor of Intelli Global Corp Ltd and former chief information officer for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, urged Hong Kong to reposition itself in the global technology supply chain amid rising geopolitical tensions. “Hong Kong needs to think very hard about where we can play in different technology sectors within this particular supply chain.”

“One of the strengths of Hong Kong is that it can be the international supply-chain management center for mainland enterprises. Many mainland technology companies want to go abroad, and Hong Kong can manage overseas supply chains, help product verification, and facilitate product distribution in overseas markets,” Sinopec (Hong Kong) Chief Supply Chain Officer Gordon Lam said.

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Patrick Lau, deputy executive director of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, said that Hong Kong continues to entrench its position as a global business hub, with record attendance at international conferences signaling strong post-pandemic recovery. He added that the ecosystem of Hong Kong’s business environment plays a crucial role in facilitating international connections.