The 25th Beijing Hong Kong Economic Cooperation Symposium kicked off on the morning of December 14 concurrently in Beijing and Hong Kong via video link. Yin Yong, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee and Acting Mayor, spoke from the Beijing venue and announced the commencement of the symposium, while Lee Ka-chiu, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), delivered a speech from Hong Kong.
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The symposium is a high-end and efficient platform for investment promotion jointly launched by local governments of the two cities. This year, with the theme of "Embracing the New Development Pattern and Opening New Chapters of Cooperation", sessions including the opening ceremony, Beijing-Hong Kong cooperation summit and cooperation exchange events were held with the aim to showcase Beijing's progress in pursuing high-standard opening-up, promote the cooperation between the two cities, and strengthen the confidence to create a better future together.
Lee said that this year marks the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland. The report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China gave a full account of new concepts and ideas of the "One Country, Two Systems" policy to support us in developing the economy and improving people's lives. We should consolidate and elevate Hong Kong's position in finance, innovation and technology to better integrate ourselves into China's overall development. As Beijing is advancing the "two zones" initiative, the key industries it plans to support have much in common as those in Hong Kong. Therefore, there is broad space for cooperation between the two cities. We hope that by leveraging the respective strengths of the two cities, we can strengthen the ties between the Beijing Stock Exchange and the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited as well as the interactions of the financial forums to boost the competitiveness of our services sector, especially the financial sector. As Beijing is building itself into the international innovation center, there will be many opportunities for exchanges cooperation, mutual learning and sharing in all links of sci-tech innovation between the two regions in the future, so as to serve the national strategies for invigorating China through science and education, workforce development, and innovation-driven development. With Beijing's leading role in the digital economy, there will be a lot of areas where the two cities can work together, both for the government agencies and enterprises. He believed that cooperation between Beijing and Hong Kong will bear more fruitful results.
Yin Yong thanked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong SAR and people from all walks of life for their longstanding care and support for Beijing-Hong Kong cooperation and development. He mentioned that the two cities have scored many successes in trade cooperation over the past 25 years based on their respective strengths and mutual benefits. As Beijing coordinated the COVID response and socio-economic development and promoted the "two zones" development with a global vision, the capital's open economy has grown against headwinds this year. The just concluded 20th CPC National Congress has charted the course for deepening cooperation between the two localities, and brought about new opportunities for our cooperation and development. He also hoped that the two regions could work closer in opening up the services sector and explore new ways of cooperation in areas like cross-border finance, so as to enhance connectivity of the financial market. As both cities are accelerating the development of international innovation centers, he expected to intensify cooperation in basic research and original innovation, build an innovation ecology for the digital economy, promote innovation in application scenarios, and help more projects get launched. Pragmatic cooperation would be carried out to foster Beijing into a global consumption center and innovate consumption models. He looked forward to working with the HKSAR government to open more channels to attract investment and for more quality and effective cooperation, thus better serving and integrating into the new development pattern, and writing a splendid chapter for Beijing-Hong Kong cooperation.
Mr. Yang Yirui, Deputy Commissioner of the MFA Commissioner's Office in the Hong Kong SAR, Mr. CHAN Mo-po, Financial Secretary of the HKSAR Government, Mr. Lam Kin-ngok, Chairman of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, and Mr. Yang Jinbai, member of the Standing Committee of CPC Beijing Municipal Committee and Vice Mayor of Beijing, attended the event.
(Writer: Yang Qi)
