Speaking in a joint interview, the chamber chiefs said the plan’s multi-year horizon aligned with how global businesses operate and provided a roadmap for Hong Kong’s development.
For overseas companies, the concrete opportunities arising from the plan go far beyond simply selling into Hong Kong, they said.
According to Mary Simpson, chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, the real value is using the city as a “super connector”.
The plan, she noted, channels Hong Kong’s established pillars of finance, law and logistics into new growth areas like artificial intelligence, green technology and medical technology.
“Don’t just look to Hong Kong as a consumer market,” Simpson said.
“We want you to look at Hong Kong as your regional boardroom, as your capital base, as your IP fortress.”
This sentiment was echoed by Johannes Hack, chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, who stressed that the plan sought to build on an already strong foundation of trust.
“Hong Kong is in a very good place already,” he said, pointing to the common law system as a key asset.
“The opportunities lie particularly in fields like sustainability… and everything centred around life sciences and the development of joint research in the Northern Metropolis.”
Paul McComb, executive director of the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, pointed out that businesses planned in three-to-five-year cycles, making the SAR’s development plan’s time frame “quite powerful”.
He added that the plan would be able to provide a predictable environment for foreign firms.
“It gives a bit of certainty to the direction,” McComb said.
“It’s a direction of travel.”
In regard to the Northern Metropolis, he praised the government’s mindset of “whatever it takes” to tackle regulatory hurdles and accelerate development.
“I feel much more encouraged about the mindset of government to develop this huge programme,” McComb said, highlighting the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park as an early sign of progress.
However, the chambers were clear that for international capital to commit, the vision needed to be backed by tangible results.
Simpson emphasised that the Northern Metropolis “can’t just be an enormous real estate project” but must be an “economic engine” that clusters universities, tech firms and healthcare.
“The ambition is undeniable,” she said.
“If the government can match that ambition with commercial visibility, then investment will clearly follow.”
Hack noted that awareness of the Northern Metropolis and the Greater Bay Area was still low in European headquarters.
He called for the creation of “lighthouse projects” that demonstrated real progress.
“Having something that truly tells a European investor, ‘Okay, I should go to Northern Metropolis because of this, because this drug has been developed there, or this specific business is set up there’ … I think will be important along the way,” Hack said.
