The Chief Executive of the HKSAR, Donald John Lee, on the 10th led a business and trade delegation from the HKSAR to visit Qatar and Kuwait.
According to Hong Kong 01 net reported on the 11th, the delegation arrived in Doha in the early hours of the same day, the official start of the visit. John Lee said that this is an important step in further developing the Middle East market after the 2023’s successful visit to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, it is also the first time that Hong Kong business leaders and representatives of mainland enterprises will jointly visit Hong Kong. The purpose of the visit is to give full play to Hong Kong’s advantages in“One Country, Two Systems connectivity” and help mainland enterprises go global, at the same time show the complementary advantages of enterprises in the mainland and Hong Kong, can play a synergistic effect, to provide a full range of supply chain services.
John Lee also said the trip would open up new opportunities for Hong Kong companies, attract Middle Eastern Capital to invest in Hong Kong, and promote the city’s financial, technology and engineering industries to connect with the Middle East. Reported that Hong Kong and the two countries will sign a number of cooperation memorandums to promote a number of cooperation projects, covering trade, aviation, scientific research, law, education and other fields.
The Lianhe Zaobao said the delegation was more than 50 people, including the Deputy Financial Secretary, Stephen Wong; the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Francis Hui; the Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Alan Yau;. The delegation also includes more than 20 mainland entrepreneurs from Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and other places. Their business areas cover finance, industry and commerce, trade, transportation and logistics.
According to Hong Kong media reports, after the Hong Kong delegation’s last visit to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a number of high-quality cooperation agreements or letters of intent were signed between companies and institutions from the two sides. Since then, the government and non-governmental exchanges have become frequent, many enterprises are landing in the Middle East and orders. The number of Middle Eastern companies based in Hong Kong grew by more than 20 per cent last year. The government plans to increase the number of economic and trade offices in the Middle East and is actively promoting the opening of another office in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in addition to the existing office in Dubai.
Fan Wan-yee, Research Director of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, said the surge in interest from Qatar and Kuwait in investing in Asia, especially China’s development of generative artificial intelligence, fits well with their needs given geopolitics. At the same time, Hong Kong has the advantages of free movement of capital and currency stability. Two-thirds of global investment in the mainland goes through Hong Kong, so Middle Eastern companies can find opportunities on the mainland in Hong Kong, and the mainland also regards Hong Kong as the primary platform for going out, making Hong Kong the meeting point of Chinese and foreign capital and giving full play to Hong Kong’s role as a“Super contact person”.
Hong Kong media mentioned that Chinese car companies that have been active overseas in recent years are very popular in Kuwait, and Chinese cars are one of the mainland products that Kuwait imports more. As for Hong Kong, its trade with Kuwait was $240m last year.