Hong Kong’s evolving role as China’s international financial, trade, and shipping center is at the heart of the country’s national development strategy. This strategy, rooted in deep regional integration with Guangdong province and Macao through the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, is now being recalibrated to respond to a rapidly changing global order shaped by shifting trade patterns, technological competition, climate transition, and geopolitical tension.

President Xi Jinping’s visit to Guangdong in early November, his first inspection tour since the fourth plenary session of the Communist Party of China’s 20th Central Committee, carried clear symbolism.

Guangdong has long been China’s economic powerhouse, contributing the country’s highest provincial GDP for decades. Xi’s decision to make this his first trip underscores the province’s enduring role as China’s reform frontier and a key laboratory for the next phase of modernization.

During his trip, Xi called upon Guangdong officials to deepen cooperation with Hong Kong and Macao under the Greater Bay Area framework, emphasizing that the region’s integrated GDP had already surpassed that of the New York and San Francisco bay areas by 2024.

Xi’s remarks also looked ahead to the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30), in which the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is expected to strengthen its position as the nation’s international financial, trade, and maritime aviation center.

Beijing is looking to the SAR not merely to preserve its traditional advantages, but to expand and modernize them, aligning the city’s capabilities with the country’s projected status as the world’s largest economy in the coming decade or so, as well as a leading innovation power.

For Hong Kong, this new chapter demands moving beyond narrow benchmarks such as IPO volume or market capitalization. While these remain useful indicators of vitality, they no longer capture the multidimensional challenges and opportunities of today’s environment, particularly as global finance becomes entangled with geopolitics.

The rise of sanctions regimes, the weaponization of the US dollar, and new financial alignments across the Global South are redefining what it means to be an “international financial center”.

Hong Kong’s existing strengths already point to its next frontier. As the world’s largest offshore renminbi hub, the city sits at the heart of a growing financial ecosystem that enables trade, investment, and reserves to be denominated in China’s currency. This role is poised to grow dramatically as more countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America seek to diversify away from dollar dependence.

Supported by the Belt and Road Initiative and a rapidly expanding network of cross-border settlement systems, the offshore renminbi market is expected to generate new financial products, liquidity channels, and innovation opportunities that could transform Hong Kong into a pivotal node in the evolving global financial architecture.

Hong Kong’s trade ecosystem, historically built around high-value goods such as gold and silver, is also due for reinvention.

Metals and commodities trading is strategically vital, especially with the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd’s ownership of the London Metal Exchange. Efforts are underway to recognize LME warehouses locally, a move that would anchor more physical trading and price discovery activity in Hong Kong.

Warehousing, logistics, and supply-chain services, which have long been seen as supporting functions, are increasingly being redefined as strategic industries linked to economic resilience and national security.

But the transformation cannot stop there.

The emergence of a global climate economy opens another domain where Hong Kong can lead. Trading in emissions and carbon credits remains nascent in Asia, yet the region’s growth potential is immense. Standard-setting, verification, and market infrastructure are precisely the areas where Hong Kong has both institutional credibility and professional expertise.

However, thinking through carbon pricing and carbon markets has been much more challenging for Hong Kong.

To accelerate progress, the Hong Kong authorities would need to engage with central government departments on clarifying Hong Kong’s potential role under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which governs international cooperation and carbon-credit trading among countries so that they can work out what role Hong Kong could play, since left to itself, the city has not yet found the way.

Hong Kong’s future relevance will rest not just on being China’s window to the world but on being a trusted bridge between global capital, real-world innovation, and the shared imperative of sustainable, shared prosperity

A well-defined position would enable Hong Kong to mobilize its financial and professional services ecosystem to support both the Chinese mainland and global decarbonization objectives.

China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) and upcoming 15th Five-Year Plan, along with the constitutional principle of ecological civilization, prioritize environmental restoration, decarbonization, resource efficiency, and biodiversity protection.

These imperatives are no longer purely domestic, as they increasingly shape China’s engagement with global markets and its climate diplomacy. For Hong Kong, aligning with these priorities offers both strategic direction and market opportunity. The city can expand its financial leadership into green finance, sustainability-linked investments, and impact measurement, thereby anchoring its capital markets to the real economy’s transition. At the same time, Hong Kong is well-positioned to help develop the “blue economy”, an emerging cluster of industries spanning shipping, port management, renewable ocean energy, fisheries, marine restoration, coastal enhancement, tourism, and innovative port technologies. As these sectors grow in importance globally, Hong Kong’s maritime tradition, connectivity, and talent base give it a natural comparative advantage.

In Chinese policy discourse, “navigation” encompasses both shipping and aviation. Hong Kong’s success as a trade and logistics hub has always depended on its excellence in these sectors. Today, both are at the threshold of transformation.

The International Maritime Organization’s decarbonization ambitions, global moves toward cleaner bunkering fuels such as methanol and ammonia, and aviation’s shift toward sustainable aviation fuels are reshaping investment and infrastructure needs worldwide.

Financing, insuring, and managing these transitions present vast opportunities for Hong Kong’s financial institutions, insurers, engineers, and innovators. To seize them, the city must strengthen talent pipelines and technical expertise in green logistics, maritime technology, and climate-resilient infrastructure.

Establishing recognized standards, certified warehouses, and transparent taxonomies will further bolster market confidence and reinforce Hong Kong’s role as an integrated finance-and-trade platform serving both China and the wider region.

The next chapter of Hong Kong’s story should be about leadership through integration — in which finance, trade, and technology combine to serve the national and global transition toward a sustainable economy. The city’s legacy strengths in the rule of law, connectivity, and abundance of talent give it a solid foundation for success. But success will depend on whether Hong Kong can define a clear, forward-looking vision that links its traditional advantages with emerging frontiers.

This means championing new markets in renminbi-denominated finance, currencies, metals, and carbon trading, as well as green and blue innovation. It also involves leveraging its universities and research institutes to integrate science with finance and policy, ensuring that its financial system supports the transformation of the real economy toward sustainability and resilience.

Hong Kong’s future relevance will rest not just on being China’s window to the world but on being a trusted bridge between global capital, real-world innovation, and the shared imperative of sustainable, shared prosperity.

The author is chief development strategist of the Institute for the Environment at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and a former undersecretary for the environment.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.