Government officials and financial regulators are confident that the Hong Kong financial market offers tremendous growth opportunities while the Chinese mainland’s development and technological advancement support their optimism.
They made their remarks at the Global Financial Leaders' Investment Summit — Conversations with Global Investors on Wednesday. The dialogue session was the second-day event of the summit, co-organized by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Securities and Futures Commission and the Hong Kong Academy of Finance.
At the session, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po emphasized that financial services should serve to enable innovative activities in the economy. “We are connecting capital with ideas, innovation with applications, and investors with new opportunities across Asia and beyond.”
The finance chief explained that Hong Kong has introduced ongoing listing regime reforms since 2018 to facilitate more new economy companies to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, including those with a weighted voting rights structure, and pre-revenue or pre-profit biotech firms. In 2023, the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region introduced new arrangements to facilitate pre-commercial specialist technology companies to get listed in Hong Kong.
“The share of new economy companies in our market has more than doubled, growing from 16 percent of total market capitalisation in 2017 to 35 percent today. In terms of IPO proceeds, they accounted for 45 percent of funds raised from 2018 to the first half of 2025,” Chan said.
Another segment that financial services can contribute is sustainability. In 2024, over $80 billion of green and sustainable debts were arranged in Hong Kong with a diverse range of issuers. The city also has supported seven catastrophe bond issuances amounting to $800 million since 2021 that serves as valuable risk-transfer instruments for countries vulnerable to natural disasters.
“We see substantial room for growth in our capital markets. The current combined market capitalisation of the Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Shenzhen stock exchanges stands at approximately 100 percent of the mainland's GDP while the corresponding figure for stock exchanges in the United States is over 200 percent,” Chan noted.
Kelvin Wong Tin-yau, the chairman of the Securities and Futures Commission, said financial regulators in Hong Kong will build on this strong momentum and unlock even more new opportunities for global investors.
“We support growth through a richer product landscape and creating market connectivity, and unwavering commit to international standards,” Wong said.
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The chairman emphasized global investors can have full confidence in Hong Kong’s world-class financial sector and regulatory frameworks. “Funds based (in Hong Kong) have more than tripled year-on-year, while the city’s assets under management have doubled over a decade, and Hong Kong-domiciled funds are growing even more strongly.”
Global investment managers are also bullish on Hong Kong as a result of what is going on in the mainland.
EQT Asia Chairman Jean Salata said the 15th Five-year Plan (2026-2030) — which emphasizes innovative manufacturing, technology investment, and the shift to consumption, as well as foreign investment and opening-up of services — is going to benefit Hong Kong.
“In the last 12 months global investors started to reallocate. Non-US clients feel they have over-allocated to US dollar assets. They are looking for diversification and looking at ways to rebalance their portfolios. I think it is going to be Asia and it is going to be Hong Kong and the mainland,” Salata noted.
“Huge potential lies ahead and capital markets are definitely going to transform the mainland and ensure sustainable economic growth. This will empower the mainland middle class to have retirement savings, and the wealth effect will make the mainland economy much more sustainable,” said Fred Hu, the founder, chairman and CEO at Primavera Capital.
