Tan Yifan

cicitan2011@gmail.com

SHENZHEN-Hong Kong cooperation is expected to rise to a new level as it is the most important collaboration in the national strategy of building the Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao Greater Bay Area and outperforming other greater bay areas around the world due to its large capital, technology and talent pools, according to speeches made by over 30 experts from political, economic, technological and academic circles at the first Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Cooperation Forum held at the Wuzhou Guest House in Futian District on Thursday.

Tung Chee-hwa, vice chairman of the national political advisory body and former Hong Kong chief executive, also attended the two-day forum.

The forum, which aims to encourage discussion on the construction of the Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao Greater Bay Area and explore win-win collaborations between Shenzhen and Hong Kong and between Qianhai and Hong Kong, attracted hundreds of attendees from various fields to propose ways to build a financial center, a technology and innovation center, a creative and cultural center, a shipping and trade center and a service platform that serves the Belt and Road Initiative.

Xu Ze, chairman of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong & Macao Studies, said at the forum that the areas within the greater bay’s scope should encourage more exchanges of talents, logistics, capital and information and exert their advantages to build an open economy.

Li Xiaojia, chief executive of HKEX Group, said that a more business-friendly platform should be built by capitalizing on the policy advantages in Shenzhen, Hong Kong and especially Qianhai to help mainland enterprises get money from Hong Kong and foreign investors and help overseas and Hong Kong enterprises win mainland investment more directly and conveniently.

“To be close to the goal, we settled our commodity trading platform in Qianhai,” said Li.

“Many guest speakers today said that the two cities should seek differentiated development. In my view, I think the real differentiated development lies in integration,” said Zhao Ling-huan, executive vice president of Legend Holdings and CEO of Hony Capital. “Hong Kong is the most successful ‘free trade area’ and Shenzhen leads the nation in technological innovation. By combining their advantages, such as technology, capital and mature modern services, they will create even greater value.”

There are over 4,000 mainland enterprises in Hong Kong and the total financial capital in Hong Kong is as high as HK$30 trillion (US$3.85 trillion), according to Yue Yi, chief executive of Bank of China (Hong Kong). Yue said that over 50,000 of the employees in Hong Kong work for financial companies, contributing 18 percent of the city’s GDP. The total capital held by banks in both cities is 4 trillion yuan and their total stock market capitalization is 6 trillion yuan.

“By combining Shenzhen’s fintech and finance-related enterprises with Hong Kong companies, I believe the total volume will soon surpass the San Francisco Bay Area,” Yue said.

In the first quarter, over 4,440 Hong Kong enterprises relocated to Qianhai and realized a total added value of 8.6 billion yuan, accounting for 22 percent of the total.

The economic contribution rate of Hong Kong companies has reached 25 percent, according to Zhang Hu, vice mayor of Shenzhen.