Free-trade zone in Shenzhen lures Hong Kong entrepreneurs chasing their dream

For the past four decades, Hong Kong has been hailed the “land of opportunity”, allowing young people, many of whom came from impoverished Guangdong villages, to realise their entrepreneurial dreams.

Many in the city are familiar with the awe-inspiring rags-to-riches stories of self-made billionaires like Li Ka-shing, who made a fortune manufacturing plastic flowers in the 1950s.

But Hong Kong has lost some of its lustre and its fertile soil that once nurtured business growth, especially for small enterprises with huge potential, has diminished, forcing many to go elsewhere.

Soaring rents, insufficient government support and a lack of investors willing to take risks were some of the reasons why three young Hong Kong entrepreneurs decided to cross the border and set up business in the Qianhai free-trade zone in Shenzhen.

Horan Fu, founder of an internet lending firm, set up an office in Qianhai a year ago after he was rejected by entrepreneur programmes at Cyberport and the Science Park, Hong Kong government-backed initiatives that aim to nourish home-grown start-ups.

Fu said that in Qianhai he was able to operate at about one-third of the cost of his Causeway Bay office of similar size. But the Shenzhen outlet gave him access to a much bigger internet financing market on the mainland.

Fu left a well-paid job as a fund manager three years ago and founded Dynamic FinTech, a peer-to-peer lending platform focusing on property mortgages between Hong Kong and the mainland.