Mainland seeks greater collaboration with Hong Kong

Cities and provinces from the mainland have been holding promotional events in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to woo tourists and capital, as well as research and development opportunities, in the wake of the city fully resuming normal travel with the mainland.

This week, several events were held by Tianjin municipality and Wuxi city of Jiangsu province, making it at least three cities and one province to hold events in Hong Kong since the border fully reopened on Feb 6.

One day after the full reopening of border crossings, the government of Nanjing, Jiangsu province, hosted an array of trade and economic exchange activities for three days in Hong Kong. About a week later, Hainan province held a similar event to invite Hong Kong enterprises and professionals to join the building of its free-trade port.

On Tuesday, Wuxi hosted the Wuxi-Hong Kong Science and Technology Industry Integration and Development Conference 2023, aiming to enhance its ties with Hong Kong in technology, cultural and industrial collaboration.

The conference saw the signing of 43 projects, covering areas such as talent, innovation and finance. In particular, some enterprises from Wuxi decided to establish research and development centers in Hong Kong to leverage the city's strengths in research and its international connectivity as their springboard to go overseas.

The event also saw the inauguration of the Wuxi Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Center.

Chen Wei, a member of the senior management team at Wuxi Hodgen Technology, said the company is very optimistic about the Hong Kong market and he hopes to find development opportunities in other countries through the city. Chen revealed that the company plans to develop and operate its subsidiary in Hong Kong as an important regional headquarters for overseas operations.

Recently, the Wuxi government promoted its tourism market by offering visitors from Hong Kong and Macao 1,000 free hotel stays and 500,000 tickets to Wuxi's famous attractions, including Yuantouzhu on Taihu Lake, a national park rated as a national 5A tourist attraction — the highest rank in the country.

On Monday, Zhang Dong, director of the Asia Tourism Exchange Center, said it will take about three months for the tourism market in Hong Kong, Macao and the Chinese mainland to return to pre-COVID levels.

On Monday, Hong Kong and Tianjin signed 19 project agreements with a total value of over 15 billion yuan ($2.2 billion) in investment, trade and industry development, deepening business collaboration between the two bustling port cities.

Albert Chuang Ka-pun, chairman and managing director of Chuang's Consortium International, believes mainland cities choose Hong Kong as a place to attract investment because Hong Kong, as the largest source of overseas investment for many mainland cities, provides not only capital, but also enterprise management and professional services.