Xu Zhengyu: Beijing and Hong Kong have complementary advantages and broad scope for collaborative development

The Zhitong Finance App learned that on November 4, Hong Kong's Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Xu Zhengyu, attended the “Investing in Hong Kong” theme promotion event at the 29th Beijing-Hong Kong Economic Cooperation Conference in Beijing. In his speech, he pointed out that Hong Kong and Beijing complement each other's strengths and have great potential for cooperation. As the country's financial management center, Beijing brings together the headquarters of many leading enterprises and financial institutions, and is the center of policy strategy and innovation. At the same time, Beijing also has top universities and scientific research talents in the country, and is a major center for innovation and technology development in the country. As a leading international financial center, Hong Kong has a mature and efficient capital market, a common law system in line with the international community, and complete professional services. It is an ideal bridge platform between mainland China and overseas markets.

Xu Zhengyu put forward four ideas on how to further deepen cooperation between Beijing and Hong Kong in the future, especially how to seize new development space.

First, make good use of Hong Kong's role as a “super contact” and “super value-added person” to fully support mainland enterprises, including Beijing, to go overseas via Hong Kong. Hong Kong has world-class professional services in line with the international community, which can provide enterprises with comprehensive support in law, accounting, finance, cross-border trade finance, multinational supply chain management, tax planning, and compliance consulting. Furthermore, in October of last year, the SAR government set up a special overseas travel class to provide one-stop, tailor-made support for mainland enterprises to go overseas to help them set sail overseas after preparing in Hong Kong.

In improving Hong Kong as the main base for corporate treasury, Hong Kong has no foreign exchange controls, and funds in multiple currencies can be freely entered and exported. It is an ideal platform for centrally allocating and managing overseas business funds. Hong Kong is determined to comprehensively enhance the appeal of the two-way “import and go global” platform to better integrate and serve the overall development of the country. By setting up treasury centers in Hong Kong, mainland enterprises can not only improve the flexibility of capital scheduling, but also benefit from relevant tax relief and concessions from the HKSAR Government, further improving overall return on capital and operational efficiency. Xu Zhengyu explained that Hong Kong has completed preliminary research and proposed an optimization direction in response to the pain points currently faced by the industry. It is proposed to add a pre-approval mechanism to the original mitigation measures to provide additional tax benefits and flexibility to pre-approved corporate treasury centers and their Hong Kong related enterprises.

Second, jointly seize the huge development potential of Hong Kong's northern metropolitan area. The Northern Metropolitan Area is a new engine for Hong Kong's future economic development and an important base for the development of innovation, technology and other emerging industry clusters. The SAR government will take university towns, innovation, industry, and “livable, easy to work, and travel” as development goals to achieve integrated development of education, technology, and talents, and form an innovation and technology ecosystem with deep integration of industry, learning, and research. It is also a base for Hong Kong to promote new industrialization and lay out future industries. Xu Zhengyu said that enterprises and financial institutions in Beijing are very welcome to set up early, actively participate in the construction and investment of the northern metropolitan area, and jointly seize the huge opportunities here.

Third, use financial strength to increase support for the innovation and technology industry. Beijing is at the forefront of the country in various fields such as artificial intelligence, biomedicine, new energy, and green technology, and has nurtured a large number of outstanding science and innovation enterprises. To promote commercialization and industrialization of research results, strong capital support is essential. We hope to provide a full chain of financial support to the innovation and technology industries in Beijing and Hong Kong through Hong Kong as an international platform. Hong Kong has a thriving venture capital fund ecosystem. Currently, private equity and venture capital funds manage a huge amount of assets, about 250 billion US dollars. Hong Kong is also continuing to update its listing rules, including introducing Chapter 18C to make it easier for specialty technology companies and hard technology companies to raise financing in Hong Kong, and to play the leading role of patient capital through Hong Kong Investment Management Co., Ltd., to encourage innovation and technology companies in Beijing to use this as a springboard to promote scientific research results to the international market.

Fourth, deepen green cooperation to serve the country's “dual carbon” goals. Beijing is actively promoting a green and low-carbon transition, while Hong Kong is Asia's leading green finance center. In 2025, the amount of green and sustainable debt issued in Hong Kong was over $76 billion. Among them, the total amount of green and sustainable bonds arranged for issuance in Hong Kong is approximately US$38 billion, and has ranked first in the Asian market for eight consecutive years since 2018. The two sides can further promote the issuance of green bonds, certify and connect green projects, and explore the standards and practices of transformational finance. Through Hong Kong's financial market, more international capital can be guided to participate in the green transformation and development of Beijing and the whole country.

Xu Zhengyu concluded that the development strategies and goals of Beijing and Hong Kong are highly compatible, have complementary advantages, and have broad scope for collaborative development. We look forward to continuing to strengthen communication and cooperation with all sectors and enterprises in Beijing in the future and work together to create a win-win situation.