Hong Kong and Shanghai need not be rivals, with the former acting as an essential bridge between Western investors and China and the latter serving as the mainland’s top financial hub, a prominent business chamber has said at the world’s largest import fair.
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In an exclusive interview with the Post, the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) said at the eighth China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai that Hong Kong would retain its role as a connector, with no direct competition with the mainland city.
“Hong Kong is still relevant as the superconnector. It has played that bridge role [which] has a window of many decades,” AmCham Shanghai president Eric Zheng said.
“Certainly, mainland China has now grown a lot, and it has become very integrated with the rest of the world. So, maybe small and medium-sized enterprises could be a good angle [for Hong Kong], or financial services.”
He added that Hong Kong still had a unique role to play and had far more sophisticated experience in this regard.
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“When you look at Hong Kong’s role as a bridge, [it first] helped foreign investors come into China … [but] more importantly, it is outbound, helping Chinese companies go overseas. So for the next 10, 20 or 30 years even, Hong Kong could play a positive role in that, right?”