Financial Secretary Paul Chan Strengthens Hong Kong-Shanghai Cooperation in Finance and Technology

2026-06-18 17:30 Last Updated At：17:38

FS continues visit to Shanghai and Nanjing

The Financial Secretary, Mr Paul Chan, continued his visit to Shanghai today (June 18) to deepen co-operation between Shanghai and Hong Kong in areas including finance, innovation and technology, as well as trade and commerce, and to further leverage Hong Kong's role as a "super connector" and "super value-adder".

Click to Gallery

FS continues visit to Shanghai and Nanjing Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

More Images

FS continues visit to Shanghai and Nanjing Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

In the morning, Mr Chan met with the Chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Mr Wu Qing, who was in Shanghai to attend the Lujiazui Forum. The two sides had in-depth exchanges on issues including continuing to support Mainland enterprises to list in Hong Kong, optimising the mutual market access mechanisms between the Mainland and Hong Kong capital markets, and taking forward financial regulatory co-operation between the two places. The Chief Executive Officer of the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong, Ms Julia Leung, also attended the meeting.

Mr Chan then visited the Shanghai Gold Exchange and met with its Chairman, Mr Yu Wenjian, to exchange views on the collaborative development of the gold markets in Shanghai and Hong Kong. He subsequently visited the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank and met with its Chairman, Mr Zhang Weizhong, with discussions focusing on advancing financial co-operation between the two places, in particular supporting finance to better serve Mainland enterprises in expanding their overseas businesses and empowering the innovation and technology ecosystem.

Mr Chan also visited two leading enterprises in the AI sector. One of them focuses on distributed AI cloud computing services and has established its offshore headquarters in Hong Kong to provide computing power services to overseas users. The other is dedicated to developing next-generation photonic computing chips, seeking to break through computing power bottlenecks with "optical computing" technology.

Mr Chan had detailed exchanges with the persons-in-charge of the two enterprises. He noted that the country's 15th Five-Year Plan clearly sets out the nurturing and strengthening of emerging and future industries, as well as expanding high-level opening-up. Riding on this opportunity, more Mainland innovation and technology enterprises are actively connecting and integrating resources from different places, expanding their global footprint and enhancing their competitive position in the industrial and supply chains. He highlighted that Hong Kong pools capital and top talent from both the Mainland and overseas, and possesses international data resources and rich application scenarios, a robust intellectual property protection regime, and quality, full-fledged financial and professional services. He welcomed the two enterprises' active consideration of listing and raising funds in Hong Kong, and making good use of Hong Kong's unique international advantages to further expand their international businesses.

In the afternoon, Mr Chan concluded his visit to Shanghai and arrived in Nanjing to continue the next leg of his trip. In the evening, he will meet with the Executive Vice Governor of Jiangsu Province, Mr Ma Xin, to exchange views on deepening co-operation between Jiangsu and Hong Kong.

Mr Chan will continue his visit programme to Nanjing tomorrow (June 19).

Hong Kong Officials Discuss Poverty Alleviation Strategies and Their Impact at Press Conference

Remarks by CS at press conference on Report on Impact of Targeted Poverty Alleviation Strategy in Hong Kong (with photos/video)

The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Chan Kwok-ki, hosted a press conference on press conference on Report on Impact of Targeted Poverty Alleviation Strategy in Hong Kong today (June 18). Also present were the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Chris Sun, and the Permanent Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Ms Alice Lau, with members of Commission on Poverty, namely Honorary President of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries Mr Jimmy Kwok; the Chief Executive Officer of St James' Settlement, Ms Josephine Lee; and the Chief Executive of the Tencent Charity Foundation, Dr James Li. Following are their remarks at the press conference:

Reporter: First, does the Government have the number of how many people have been lifted out of poverty thanks to the poverty alleviation measures? If no, how can the Government assess the effectiveness of these measures when we are talking about poverty alleviation, and does that mean Hong Kong will no longer have a poverty line? Second, the Government has for the first time adopted the concept of social transfer values in poverty alleviation measurement, which shows the benefits received by households. How does this actually tell the effectiveness of the poverty alleviation efforts? How does the Government assess whether the amounts are enough to help those in need. Does that justify not providing more financial support? Thank you.

Secretary for Labour and Welfare: Thank you for your question. As the Chief Secretary has said very clearly, when we talk about targeted alleviation of poverty, it is based on a very comprehensive basic services provided in the fields of social service, medical, education, and also public housing. So all these four areas, you can imagine, provide a very comprehensive basic support for a wide spectrum of people in Hong Kong who are in need of different forms of Government support for them. But on top of that, we are also conscious about the needs of some special groups. They include those living in sub-divided flats, those who are single parent families, and what we call, all-elderly families. They have needs other than what is usually provided through social welfare, medical, education and public housing. Then we designed targeted services. This includes visits by the Care Teams and Community Living Rooms. All these are designed to help different groups. I think the key is to look at the for each individual project, we are more focused on KPIs and whether we have been able to achieve all those pre-set KPIs. It is clearly shown in the report. I think we are more than meeting the KPI requirements. So this all shows that these targeted alleviation projects achieved the stated objectives, by helping all those groups and targeted groups of people whom we believe they need our help.

And a part of that, we have provided with new tools, as you have mentioned, the social transfer values. This is an internationally recognised way to monetise, and to give you a value about the services provided by the Government. I think the best way is to visualise the fact, if you turn to page 168 and 169 of the Report, we have given you some very typical examples, including the elderly and families living in a public housing estates, and those receiving elderly services or receiving cash subsidies from the Government, so they show you in a very easily understandable way. So if all the services provided by the Government had to be obtained from the market, of course assuming all these services are available in the market, what would be the value in monetary terms of all these services? To give you an idea about the support provided to all those people who are in need of help, this is the way to look at what we are doing right now about targeted alleviation of poverty. Thank you.

Chief Secretary for Administration: I want to supplement that in terms of beneficiaries, and according to our records for the Sham Shui Po Community Living Room as an example, so far there are about 520 000 number of attendance, and for the Strive and Rise programme, we all together have more than 14 000 students, and for the after-school care service, the quota is 10 500. These are the beneficiaries.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the remarks.)

Financial Secretary Paul Chan Strengthens Hong Kong-Shanghai Cooperation in Finance and Technology

HK