HongKong

Enterprises in Beijing and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) signed 11 agreements at the 24th Beijing Hong Kong Economic Cooperation Symposium held on Monday. The overall investment value for the 11 agreements reached $8.814 billion, Beijing Daily reported. 

The 11 agreements consisted of one cooperation program and 10 investment programs and covered different aspects including biological medicine, artificial intelligence, public health and new energy. Multiple leading enterprises from Hong Kong will enter Beijing to boost local development after the contracts were signed. 

The cooperation targeting climate change between Beijing and Hong Kong was also mentioned at the symposium. 

Hui Ching-yu, secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau of Hong Kong, said at the opening ceremony of the symposium that since 2018, Hong Kong has issued $7.25 billion in "green bonds" to combat global climate change. 

Two months ago, the authorities in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province issued an offshore RMB bond in Hong Kong, part of which is to be used for sustainable development. Hui noted that Hong Kong issued $12 billion in "green debt" in 2020 and 60 percent of debt issuers were from the Chinese mainland. 

"We encourage enterprises and institutions to invest in the sustainable development industry based on Hong Kong's financing platform and services," said Hui.

By the end of September 2021, 17,782 Hong Kong enterprises had settled in Beijing. A total of 576 enterprises from Hong Kong opened branches in Beijing from January to September, with $10.63 billion of investment value, a year-on-year increase of 27.4 percent.

Global Times