Asia+ Festival 2025 Celebrates Cultural Diversity with Vibrant Performances in Hong Kong

Asian Ethnic Cultural Performances+ showcases cultural diversity of some 30 countries and regions

Asian Ethnic Cultural Performances+, one of the highlight programmes of the Asia+ Festival 2025, was held this afternoon (November 16) at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Piazza and Foyer. With staunch support from various consulates-general and overseas cultural organisations in Hong Kong, the event brought together cultural and artistic aspects of around 30 countries and regions from Asia and along the Belt and Road. Presented by the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau and organised by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD), the event featured ethnic music, dance, traditional costume displays, handicrafts, and signature delicacies, presenting a vibrant and diverse cultural experience. It drew over33 000 local residents and tourists, and was met with great enthusiasm.

The Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism, Miss Rosanna Law, noted in her opening remarks of the Asia+ Festival ceremony that the Festival aims to create a sustainable platform for arts and cultural exchanges across Asia and the Belt and Road regions. This flagship festive event reaffirms Hong Kong's role as an East-‍‍‍meets-‍West centre for international cultural exchanges. Leveraging the city's unique advantages under the "one country, two systems" principle, the festival actively fosters people-to-people connectivity and cultural integration. The Asian Ethnic Cultural Performances+, launched today, unveils the legendary sounds of classical and folk music from different regions, showcasing the charm of diverse cultures.

Other officiating guests included the Director of Leisure and Cultural Services, Ms Manda Chan, the Commissioner for Belt and Road, Mr Nicholas Ho, as well as representatives from consulates-general in Hong Kong of various participating countries of the Asia+ Festival.

Following the ceremony, a series of captivating ethnic performances commenced. Artistic troupes from participating countries and regions presented traditional music and folk dance performances, offering the audience an immersive multicultural experience. The event opened with a dazzling performance by an Egyptian dancer of the Tanoura, a dance known for its rich spiritual and ritual symbolism.

The venue also featured numerous cultural booths showcasing exquisite handicrafts from various countries and regions alongside stalls offering traditional snacks. Interactive workshops were held on-site, allowing visitors to experience ethnic dance and musical instruments, as well as participate in craft making and umbrella painting, activities suitable for all ages.

In addition, the "Vibrant Dance - National Costume Exhibition" is being held at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Foyer from today to November 23, displaying distinctive traditional attire and dance costumes from various countries and regions. The exhibition is free of charge and open to the public.

This year's Asian Ethnic Cultural Performances+ will feature participation from various countries and regions, namely Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Kuwait, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, Hong Kong, China and Macao, China.

Highlights from today’s performances will be edited into a recap video and made available online on November 30 via the LCSD’s Community Programmes Office website: www.cpo.gov.hk/zh-hk/activity/tc-aecp-2025-carnival.

The Asia+ Festival is held annually from September to November with the aim of creating a sustainable platform for arts and cultural exchanges. While focusing on Asia, the Festival this year also connects Belt and Road countries and regions in Europe, Africa and the Americas. Now in its third edition, artists from more than 30 countries and regions, including 12 new participating countries, are taking part in the Festival, featuring over 100 performances and activities. Apart from stage programmes, there is also an outdoor carnival, a thematic exhibition, workshops, a backstage tour, masterclasses, talks, outreach performances and more. For programme enquiries and concessionary schemes, please call 2370 1044 or visitwww.asiaplus.gov.hk.

Source: AI-found images

Asian Ethnic Cultural Performances+ showcases cultural diversity of some 30 countries and regions Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Asian Ethnic Cultural Performances+ showcases cultural diversity of some 30 countries and regions Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Asian Ethnic Cultural Performances+ showcases cultural diversity of some 30 countries and regions Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Asian Ethnic Cultural Performances+ showcases cultural diversity of some 30 countries and regions Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Asian Ethnic Cultural Performances+ showcases cultural diversity of some 30 countries and regions Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Asian Ethnic Cultural Performances+ showcases cultural diversity of some 30 countries and regions Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Asian Ethnic Cultural Performances+ showcases cultural diversity of some 30 countries and regions Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Asian Ethnic Cultural Performances+ showcases cultural diversity of some 30 countries and regions Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Source: AI-found images

Speech by FS at CUHK EMBA Annual Conference

Following is the speech by the Financial Secretary, Mr Paul Chan, at the CUHK EMBA Annual Conference today (May 9):

Professor Dennis Lo (Vice-Chancellor and President, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)), Professor Lin Zhou (Dean, CUHK Business School), Macy (Chairperson of Organizing Committee, Ms Macy Chan), Michael (Chairperson of Organizing Committee, Mr Michael Chan), CUHK EMBA alumni and students, business leaders, distinguished guests and friends,

Good evening.

Addressing a room full of Executive MBA students and graduates is both an honour and a privilege. There is a particular kind of ambition in this room — one that is not content with success alone, but driven to understand it more deeply, in the belief that better ideas lead to greater impact.

That kind of commitment — to learning, to growth, to asking harder questions — is precisely what today's conversation is about.

The theme of this conference, which focuses on innovation and agile leadership, could not be more timely. Most of us here have lived through the Internet age and the smartphone revolution, which made communication faster and more seamless than anyone had imagined.

Today, the rise of AI places us at a more fundamental tipping point. Technology is not merely changing the answers — it is redefining the questions themselves.

Consider what is already within reach. An AI assistant can learn your preferences, curate a personalised shortlist, and simply ask for your confirmation. We should even ask whether the smartphone and the search engine will remain our primary gateways to the digital world, or whether something altogether new is already taking shape.

To draw an analogy, the power of technology does not lie in drawing the old map with greater precision. It lies in revealing how much of that map remains uncharted — and in showing us that entirely new maps, with new co-ordinates, are being drawn.

This redefinition is unfolding across three dimensions simultaneously.

First, the redefinition of products. Products are no longer discrete, standalone objects. A smart car is a vehicle, but also a mobile platform for data. An insurance policy can be a contract, but equally a dynamic reflection of health data. Innovation today is born from cross-sector convergence and continuous evolution.

Second, the redefinition of services. Services are no longer delivered solely by enterprises. They emerge from collaborative networks of people and AI. But the more profound shift is in what customers now expect. In the past, good service meant reaching the right person quickly. Today, customers expect a solution that anticipates their needs before articulating them. This requires a new architecture of service delivery: human and machine, with AI handling the scale, the speed, and the personalisation that no human team alone could sustain.

Third, and most importantly, the redefinition of business models. In the past, we sought optimal solutions within established frameworks — when demand rose, we expanded capacity; when service needs grew, we opened more branches. Technology invites us to break out of those frameworks entirely. Intelligent manufacturing means that "economies of scale" is no longer the only answer; flexible supply chains have made customised, on-demand production the new normal.

These three redefinitions are opening a commercial frontier unlike anything we have seen before. But if the benefits of technology accrue only to a small circle, its power remains fundamentally constrained. This brings me to the second message I want to leave with you today: inclusivity.

Inclusivity is not charity. Yet it is the smartest business strategy available. The unmet needs of the broader public represent the largest and most underserved market opportunity in existence. When you make quality healthcare, education and financial services accessible and affordable to ordinary residents, you are not serving a group in need of handouts — you are unlocking a vast market that traditional business models have consistently overlooked.

Hong Kong has a distinctive role to play here. We can be a co-architect of standards, a hub for capital, and a bridge between innovation and real-world deployment — from clinical validation of smart healthcare, to green technology financing, to regulatory sandboxes for fintech. Our contribution draws not only on institutional strengths and international networks, but on our genuine commitment to broad-based participation.

Yet inclusive products and services are only the first step. The deeper dimension is empowerment.

History reminds us that the dividends of technological revolution need to be actively guided to reach the many. In the age of steam, and again in the Internet era, early gains concentrated among capital owners and top-tier talent. But today we have the opportunity to write a different story. AI, as an amplifier of human capability, is already enabling what was previously unimaginable: a solo entrepreneur, with the right tools and the right vision, can build a unicorn.

In other words, the unit of competitive advantage is shifting — from the size of your team to the skill with which you orchestrate your tools.

Our mission should be to make that shift available to everyone. To turn individual readiness into collective prosperity, and to ensure that the productivity gains of AI flow broadly across the society.

This is precisely why, in this year's Budget, I placed such emphasis on the "AI Training for All" initiative.

We are not trying to turn everyone into an engineer. We are ensuring that workers, managers, SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) owners, and ordinary residents become capable collaborators with AI: people who can access it, use it effectively, and put it to work as their assistant.

That may sound ambitious, but consider this: if AI can one day be as intuitive as the smartphone, then mass adoption is not difficult to imagine at all. Just as computers once migrated from specialist facilities into offices and homes, AI will find its way into everyone's daily work and life.

For business leaders, it may be tempting to think of AI as "digital employee" that can replace existing workers. But think of a different framing: equipping your workforce with powerful digital assistants can achieve productivity gains, while also freeing your people to do what humans do best — create, imagine and innovate.

Companies that take those extra steps, and think those extra moves ahead, will find that an empowered workforce is also a more innovative one.

All in all, the power of technology must ultimately be measured by its contribution to inclusive growth. And inclusive growth, in the end, depends on, yes, commercial acumen — but also empathy, compassion, and the conviction that a rising tide should lift all boats. I can see that those qualities live in this room.

I will close with this thought. Someone once joked that economists know the price of everything and the value of nothing. With AI, let us never fall into the same trap — in our race to price every efficiency gain, let us not lose sight of the deeper value we are trying to create: a society where the fruits of innovation are broadly shared, and where technology lifts not just the fortunate few, but everyone willing to reach for it.

So here is my ask: let us grow the pie together. And make sure we cut it well.

Thank you very much.

Source: AI-found images

Speech by FS at CUHK EMBA Annual Conference Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Speech by FS at CUHK EMBA Annual Conference Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Source: AI-found images