HK will play ‘larger part’ in growth

A higher level of economic collaboration between the Chinese mainland and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region will help the city play a bigger role in the rapid development of the world’s second-largest economy, a central government official said.

“The winning growth formula for the Chinese mainland’s economic miracle over the past four decades is our unswerving adherence to the national policy of opening-up,” Yi Gang, deputy director of the General Office of the Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs, said at a seminar in Hong Kong on Thursday.

Hong Kong, ranked the world’s freest economy for the 23rd straight year by the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, has exported a pragmatic, resultsbased and market-oriented approach that helped transform the Chinese mainland from a closed, centrally planned economy into the global powerhouse it is today, Yi said.

The meeting focused on giving an official interpretation of the just-concluded 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China for the Hong Kong public. The seminar was organized by Our Hong Kong Foundation, one of the city’s leading think tanks, founded by former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa in 2014.

Yi is among a group of prominent central government officials invited by the Hong Kong SAR government to brief Hong Kong officials and the public on the congress.