The market size of China’s Greater Bay Area is the key to Hong Kong’s economic woes, says chief of oldest business guild
- Tourists arrival plummeted 99.9 per cent in April, showing the need for companies to go north to serve them
- WeLab is among the new generation of Hong Kong firm to invest in Greater Bay Area
Hong Kong’s businesses, perched within 15 minutes by high-speed rail from the world’s 11th largest economic cluster, is in the uniquely advantageous position to exploit the US$1.65 trillion economy of the Greater Bay Area (GBA), said the chief of the city’s oldest and largest commercial guild.
That advantage is particularly important amid Hong Kong’s unprecedented recession, as the arrivals of mainland Chinese tourists and business travellers with their fistfuls of renminbi have plunged to an all-time low, said George Leung Siu-kay, chief executive of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce.
“If mainland Chinese do not come to Hong Kong, the ideal solution would be for Hong Kong companies to go north to serve them,” said Leung, who represents 4,000 businesses employing 1.3 million people in the city. “If the authorities can remove the restrictions on capital and talent flow within the GBA, Hong Kong companies can set up shops and restaurants on the mainland. It will be the solution to help the business sector recover from this recession.”
Tourist arrivals in Hong Kong plummeted to an all-time low of 4,125 in April, from 5.58 million in the same month last year, as cross-border travelling ground to a halt amid the global coronavirus pandemic. Even after China emerged from the Covid-19 lockdown in March, few people ventured to Hong Kong, causing arrivals for the first four months to plunge 85 per cent to 3.49 million, from 23.8 million last year, hitting the retail, catering, tourism and finance industries particularly hard.
The GBA project, first unveiled in February 2019, is the Chinese government’s ambitious plan to integrate Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities of Guangdong province into an economic cluster. The combined economic output of the area is larger than Russia, and just behind Canada if it were counted as a stand-alone entity, with a population that is forecast to grow 43 per cent to 100 million by 2035.