The number of Chinese mainland and multinational companies setting up in Hong Kong reached record highs this year, as did the number of startups, according to two surveys released by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government on Tuesday.
The 2024 Annual Survey of Companies in Hong Kong with Parent Companies Located outside Hong Kong showed that the number of companies from overseas and the mainland that have set up shop in the city increased by 10 percent to 9,960 from last year.
On the other hand, the number of startups in the special administrative region increased to 4,694, also up 10 percent from last year, according to the 2024 Startup Survey.
"With our unique advantages under 'one country, two systems', Hong Kong is the best two-way platform for overseas enterprises to tap into the mainland market and for mainland enterprises to go global, and therefore is their prime destination for investment,” said Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Algernon Yau Ying-wah.
“While factors such as global economic uncertainties, a shift in market behavior after the epidemic and geopolitics have hindered enterprises' global expansion plans, Hong Kong's business-friendly environment has maintained its unique advantages and attractiveness, offering enterprises vast opportunities,” he added.
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The number of people employed by firms with parent companies outside Hong Kong reached 493,000, an increase of 5 percent year-on-year.
They included companies in the import/export trade and wholesale and retail sector (4,730), the financing and banking sector (2,020) and the professional, business and education services sector (1,530).
In terms of origin, the mainland ranked first (2,620), followed by Japan (1,430), the United States (1,390), the United Kingdom (720) and Singapore (520).
"Companies from the mainland continued to top the list, proving once again that Hong Kong is mainland enterprises' preferred platform to go global,” Yau said.
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“As for the continued growth in the number of companies from overseas, it indicates that businesses remain pragmatic about business expansion and are sensibly choosing Hong Kong as their base to expand in Asia despite geopolitical headwinds,” he added.
Compared with data from 2020, the number of startups in the special administrative region has increased by 40 percent. These startups, spanning sectors such as financial technology, information technology, electronic commerce and education, also engaged 17,651 persons, up 7 percent compared to last year's figure.
Notably, the number of startups in the health and medical sector and the sustainable technology/green technology sector recorded significant year-on-year increases of 54 percent and 82 percent, respectively.
Many startups chose the city as their base because of the robust support provided by the government and many other institutions.
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NeuDirection, a bio-medical startup based in Hong Kong, received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration this year for its new product Neu-001 IND, an innovative drug to treat amblyopia — also called lazy eye.
Micky Tortorella, one of the startup’s founders and senior principal investigator of the Centre for Regenerative Medicine and Health at the Hong Kong Institute of Science and Innovation, an affiliated institution of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said it is receiving support from InnoHK, an incubator cluster initiated by the SAR government.
“Hong Kong is a bridge. In the city, we can collaborate with corporations in the mainland and easily access the US market,” he said, adding that collaboration is essential in developing medicines.
Tortorella and He Jufang, head and chair professor of the Department of Neuroscience, City University of Hong Kong, co-founded the startup in Hong Kong last year.
The 2024 Annual Survey of Companies in Hong Kong with Parent Companies Located outside Hong Kong was jointly conducted by InvestHK, an investment-promoting department of the HKSAR government and the Census and Statistics Department.
The 2024 Startup Survey was conducted by InvestHK in collaboration with 56 operators of co-work spaces, incubators and accelerators.
