Top experts drive home Xi Jinping’s message
to make good use of its unique advantages, including its common law system, to contribute to the Greater Bay Area, referring to Beijing’s ambitious plan to transform Hong Kong, Macau and nine southern Chinese cities into an innovation hub.
Meanwhile, economic specialist Xie told the seminar’s attendees that the United States and other Western countries wished China to remain at the mid and low end of the industrial chain and remain the world’s factory.
“This is what we cannot allow in modernisation,” he said, adding that China must maintain a reasonable scale of manufacturing, while also continuing to improve on its level.
While Xie did not mention Hong Kong directly, the city has been earmarked as an innovation hub for national development, with its focus ranging from fintech to biomedicine.
The economic expert said Hong Kong and the mainland had close ties in sectors such as trade, investment and finance. He added that each was the other’s most important trading partner, citing the city as the top source of foreign investment pegged for across the border, as well as a prime spot for the mainland’s direct outbound investment.
Xie added that there was huge room for cooperation in shipping and trade between Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Total trade volume between the mainland and Hong Kong reached US$360.3 billion in 2021, a six-fold increase from the level in 1997 when the city returned to Chinese rule, accounting for an average annual growth rate of 8.5 per cent, Xie noted.
He also pointed to how the mainland had absorbed US$1.4 trillion in investment from Hong Kong as of the end of 2021, accounting for 57.6 per cent of its total foreign direct investment.
The stock of the mainland’s non-financial direct investment in Hong Kong reached US$800 billion, making up 53 per cent of foreign non-financial direct investment across the border, he added.
Political scientist Professor Lau Siu-kai warned against linking Shen’s remarks on refining the city’s governing model to current debates on the interpretation of the Beijing-imposed national security law.
“The central government has always said that the model has to be improved to make it more concrete, systematic and filled with details,” said Lau, who is vice-president of the semi-official think tank Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies
The emphasis during the seminar on an executive-led system also highlighted how local authorities had previously failed to deliver on the concept in the past, prompting Beijing to raise the matter yesterday, he added.
Also appearing at the seminar, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said the one country, two systems principle had helped Hong Kong over the past 25 years to overcome economic crises and the coronavirus pandemic.
Luo Huining, director of Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong, also said the pair’s visit showed the significance of the work report and how much Beijing valued the city.