It is reassuring to Hong Kong people that Vice-Premier Han Zheng, the State leader in charge of the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions’ affairs, reaffirmed on Friday that the central government fully supports all measures that are beneficial to maintaining Hong Kong’s long-term prosperity and stability as well as anything that is beneficial to furthering Hong Kong’s integration into national development.

Worries have recently reemerged that Hong Kong’s role in and significance to the national development strategy is diminishing after Shenzhen was assigned the task of implementing pilot reforms and building the city in the next five years into a demonstration area of socialism with Chinese characteristics. However, the vice-premier’s remarks suggest Hong Kong does have a role in the next stage of national development.

But the city needs to reposition itself. With the global political landscape witnessing profound changes, China has rolled out a new development pattern featuring “dual circulation”, which makes the domestic market as the mainstay of the economy while allowing the domestic and foreign markets to boost each other.

To play a significant role in the new stage of national development, Hong Kong must adapt to the new national development model and align its own development strategy with it. This essentially entails further integration of the city’s economy with that of the mainland.

Hong Kong has flourished over the past few decades by serving the various needs of the huge economic hinterland beyond the Shenzhen River, in the capacity of a middleman. With the implementation of the new national development model that places more emphasis on “internal circulation”, Hong Kong must also shift its focus to the mainland.

Moreover, deteriorating geopolitics, which is squeezing the space for Hong Kong’s trade-oriented economy to twist and turn in the international market, makes it all the more imperative for the SAR to look to the Chinese mainland for economic opportunities.

It is against this backdrop that Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor paid a five-day visit to Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, during which she held meetings with various departments and commissions of the central government to explore opportunities for cooperation and collaboration between the two sides, particularly in the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, as well as measures to help boost the city’s pandemic-hammered economy.

Hong Kong people can rest assured that measures aimed at helping the SAR’s economy and people’s livelihoods are in the pipeline and will be rolled out, one after another, after the details are finalized.