Wong (left) and Lam are positive about the future for both Hong Kong and Asean nations.
AFTER a tumultuous three years, Hong Kong – Asia’s world city and one of Asia Pacific’s most important financial hubs – is making strides in its post-pandemic recovery.
Topping that list of priorities is forging ties with its counterparts including three Asean countries – Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia.
In July this year, a delegation from Hong Kong led by Chief Executive John Lee – accompanied by top officials and business leaders from various sectors including industry and commerce, financial services, transport, and innovation and technology – met with leaders and businesses in all three countries.
“It has been very constructive,” said Hong Kong Deputy Financial Secretary Michael Wong of the three-nation tour which culminated in Kuala Lumpur on July 28.
The week-long visit, he said, focused on building friendship, strengthening cooperation and goodwill between the city and its Asean counterparts – a bloc that collectively represented Hong Kong’s second largest trading partner in 2022.
“The business communities in the three countries have huge interest in the latest development of Hong Kong and Hong Kong business leaders are interested in opportunities in Asean,” he added.
The success of the Asean-China Free Trade Area has been further enhanced by the introduction of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), comprising 15 Asia-Pacific countries, including all 10 Asean members.
RCEP is the largest free trade agreement in the world, and a partnership Hong Kong sees a future with.
According to Wong, the leaders of the three countries have indicated strong support for Hong Kong’s accession to the RCEP – a move that would see Hong Kong strengthening its ties with Asean.
“We are a small economy, but we have a huge trading forum,” he said, citing its robust financial services, including being Asia’s largest market in Asian bonds issued internationally.
For Wong, one of Hong Kong’s biggest advantages is its role as middleman.
“The city is the ideal gateway to connect international investors with Mainland China while a lot of trade from Mainland China is channelled via Hong Kong.”
He also encouraged Asean enterprises to expand their businesses in Hong Kong and explore the promising Greater Bay Area (GBA) market. Encompassing Hong Kong, Macao and nine major cities in southern China, the GBA is home to 86 million consumers and has a combined GDP of about US$1.9tril in 2022.
Hong Kong’s Secretary for Transport and Logistics Lam Sai-hung said that the city’s strategic location also makes it a preferred choice when it comes to aviation and maritime services.
Hong Kong sits within a five-hour flight from Asia’s most exciting business markets and half the world’s population. Lam wants Asean countries to make full use of Hong Kong’s connectivity and location to explore other areas of business.
“Hong Kong provides a good platform because both Mainland China and Asean can utilise it for swift transportation of goods to the rest of the world,” Lam said, noting that the city is known for its efficient custom clearance and transport linkages, and was once again named as the world’s busiest cargo airport in 2022.
To further leverage Hong Kong’s centralised location, Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) – one of the world’s best and busiest airports – is transforming into an airport city.
This project will turn HKIA into a complex that houses outlets for entertainment, shopping, hotels and eateries.
The three-runway system, slated to be completed next year, said Lam, will also increase the capacity by 50% to cater for 120 million passengers, and double the goods capacity to 10 million tonnes a year.
Two other projects that piqued the interest of Asean counterparts, said Wong, are the Kau Yi Chau Artificial Islands, and the Northern Metropolis.
The former, spanning a 1,000-hectare area sitting within a five to six-minute drive from Central on Hong Kong Island, will provide land for the development of the city’s third core business district, and circumvent both the issue of housing shortages and traffic congestion.
The latter, an important base for the development of innovation and technology (I&T) in north Hong Kong, will provide up to 650,000 jobs with 150,000 in the I&T sector. It will also be home to 2.5 million people upon its completion.
Both projects, said Wong, would be constructed in an environmentally responsible manner, and present opportunities in the area of infrastructure.
“If there are Asean businesses that are good at infrastructure building, urban design, planning, architecture, they are welcomed to Hong Kong,” he said.
Over the duration of the tour, a total of 33 MoUs and agreements were signed in all three countries – covering areas including trading and commerce, investment, finance, innovation and technology, academic research and cultural exchange.
Hong Kong is not merely a springboard for these Asean nations to benefit, engage and diversify capital with Mainland China and the wider Asia, but will soon be the key to the world’s economic engine.
