Finance chief Paul Chan updates Chinese President Xi Jinping on Hong Kong’s situation at Apec summit

“President Xi cares about Hong Kong very much, and I took this opportunity to briefly report to him on Hong Kong’s economic and social situation,” he said of their brief exchanges as they sat next to each other during the leaders’ meeting.

“I mentioned that since the new government took office, strengthening the economy and improving people’s livelihood have been our top priorities. In this new stage, we have adopted proactive policies and measures, especially in the area of attracting enterprises and talent.”

Chan added that he relayed to Xi that the government was focused on attracting companies in the strategic areas of artificial intelligence and big data analytics, biotech, biomedicine and health science, fintech, and new materials, new energy and advanced manufacturing. The minister also told the president the city would organise more international events to attract global businesses and visitors to Hong Kong.

In the past few months alone, the city hosted Hong Kong FinTech Week and the Global Financial Leaders’ Investment Summit, while next month the Saudi Arabia-headquartered Future Investment Initiative Institute would hold its inaugural Asia Summit, Chan added.

“From these events and their huge number of participants, we can see that the Chinese market is so big, and Hong Kong is part of the Greater Bay Area, which is a key national development strategy with huge opportunities,” he said. “Therefore, many foreign businesses have seen these potentials and opportunities, and are very interested in coming to Hong Kong for development.”

President Xi Jinping, Hong Kong’s Paul Chan find time to chat at Apec summit

Chan also said several representatives of economies at the summit found the exchanges between China and the United States encouraging, and believed more communication and possibly different levels of cooperation between the two countries would be crucial to stabilising the global economic recovery and accelerating development.

The minister noted that China’s economic expansion was relatively fast and stable, contributing about 30 per cent to annual global economic growth.

During long-awaited talks between Xi and his US counterpart Joe Biden on Wednesday, the two sides agreed to work together on the emerging field of artificial intelligence and controlling the drugs trade, while also resuming military to military communication.

Chan represented Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu at the Apec leaders’ meeting as US sanctioned Lee said he could not attend due to “scheduling issues”, although he received a personal invitation.

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The finance chief had the chance to chat with Xi for about four minutes on the first day of the leaders’ meeting on Thursday.

Chan went to the San Francisco International Airport with the national delegation to see Xi off on Friday night before returning to the city.