Hong Kong to promote diversified industrial development: financial chief

HONG KONG -- Paul Chan, financial secretary of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government, said on Tuesday that a new industry promotion office of the HKSAR government has already contacted more than 150 enterprises, many of which are high-end tech companies that are leaders in their respectively fields.

Chan briefed reporters Tuesday on the progress of the work of the Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises (OASES), which commenced full operation on Dec. 23, 2022 with the aim of attracting high-potential and strategic enterprises from around the globe. He also talked about Hong Kong's plan to promote the diversified development of Hong Kong industries.

"Our targets include enterprises in Chinese mainland and overseas, so as to give full play to our advantages of enjoying strong support of the motherland and being closely connected to the world," Chan said, adding that Hong Kong has many unique advantages in attracting companies.

"Mainland enterprises hope to use Hong Kong as a platform to build an international market. At the same time, Hong Kong's advantages in financing and attracting international talent are highly valued by mainland enterprises," Chan noted.

He went on to say that overseas companies hope to use Hong Kong as a stronghold to further explore the mainland market, especially the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area market.

The financial chief said that the enterprises targeted by the HKSAR government must be conducive to Hong Kong's long-term economic development and also meet the needs of the national development strategy, especially the vision of developing Hong Kong as an international innovation and technology center.

Therefore, the OASES focuses on strategic industries such as life and health technology, artificial intelligence and data science, financial technology, advanced manufacturing, and new energy technology, he said.

"Recently, the HKSAR government has actively promoted the development of Web3 ecosystem and attracted many innovative tech companies in this field to develop their business in Hong Kong. In the past year, about 150 firms in this field have been attracted to Hong Kong," he said.

Chan said the HKSAR government is planning to attract at least 1,130 enterprises to establish or expand their business in Hong Kong between 2023 and 2025, which will help further enhance Hong Kong's high-quality, high value-added economic development, and provide more job opportunities for Hong Kong people.