With Hong Kong struggling to get out of the quagmire its economy is in, many people in the city — particularly those from the service sectors whose businesses or livelihoods have been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic — have reason to pin their hopes on Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s three-day trip to Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen next week.

The proposal to establish a health code system that will allow quarantine-free cross-boundary travel between Hong Kong and Guangdong province could be on Lam’s agenda. This long-anticipated arrangement is essential for the resumption of normal cross-boundary economic activities. Cross-boundary economic activities, including the movement of people between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland, are an integral part of the dynamics that sustain the city as an international finance, trade and logistics center.   

The proposed health code system is also crucial to the revival, or even the survival, of Hong Kong’s service and hospitality sectors, including retailing, catering, transportation and hotel operations, which rely heavily on visitors from the mainland. Before the yearlong violent anti-government campaign and the pandemic hit Hong Kong, mainland visitors accounted for around 80 percent of total visitor arrivals, and once contributed more than one-third of Hong Kong’s retail sales. After the double whammy, Hong Kong’s tourism has virtually vanished — with visitor numbers plunging 92.4 percent in the first nine months and 99.7 percent in September compared with the same periods last year.

It is safe to assume that Lam’s agenda also includes proposals with a vision of Hong Kong’s longer-term socioeconomic development, including measures to strengthen the special administrative region’s role and cooperation with other cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. 

The Bay Area will provide Hong Kong with a powerful platform to participate in the “internal circulation” process of the country’s new development model, which places emphasis on both “internal circulation” and “external circulation”. 

Over the past several decades, Hong Kong has benefited tremendously from active participation in the country’s reform and opening-up process, which is essentially an external-circulation process. By making full use of its advantages and playing the role of intermediary between the mainland and the rest of the world, the city has turned itself into a major international finance, trade and logistics center. 

By proactively participating in the “internal circulation” process through closer cooperation and collaboration with Bay Area partners, Hong Kong can look forward to huge opportunities for furthering the city’s socioeconomic development and gaining more leeway to tackle its deep-seated problems, aside from contributing further to national development.