Financial Secretary Paul Chan’s visit to Shanghai continued today, as he sought to deepen co-operation between Shanghai and Hong Kong in finance, innovation and technology, and trade and commerce, and to further leverage Hong Kong’s role as a “super connector” and “super value-adder”.
In the morning, Mr Chan met China Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman Wu Qing, who was in Shanghai to attend the Lujiazui Forum. The two sides had in-depth exchanges on matters including continued support for Mainland enterprises to list in Hong Kong, optimising mutual market access mechanisms between the Mainland and Hong Kong capital markets, and taking forward financial regulatory co-operation between the two places.
Mr Chan then visited the Shanghai Gold Exchange and met its chairman Yu Wenjian to exchange views on the collaborative development of the gold markets in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
He subsequently visited the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank and met its chairman Zhang Weizhong. Their discussion focused on advancing financial co-operation between the two places, in particular supporting finance to better serve Mainland enterprises in expanding their overseas businesses and empowering the innovation and technology ecosystem.
Mr Chan also visited two leading enterprises in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector and held detailed exchanges with their representatives. One of the enterprises focuses on distributed AI cloud computing services and has established its offshore headquarters in Hong Kong to provide computing power services to overseas users.
The other is dedicated to developing next-generation photonic computing chips, seeking to break through computing power bottlenecks with optical computing technology.
Mr Chan said the country’s 15th Five-Year Plan clearly sets out to nurture and strengthen emerging and future industries, besides expanding high-level opening-up. He highlighted that Hong Kong pools capital and top talent from both the Mainland and overseas, and possesses international data resources and rich application scenarios, a robust intellectual property protection regime, and high-quality, full-fledged financial and professional services.
Mr Chan urged the two enterprises’ active consideration of listing and raising funds in Hong Kong, and invited them to make good use of the city’s unique international advantages to expand their international operations.
In the afternoon, Mr Chan concluded his visit to Shanghai and arrived in Nanjing to continue the next leg of his trip.
