HK's Future Bright

Chief Executive Carrie Lam

The 2021 Policy Address was delivered exactly four weeks ago. If you ask me, this Policy Address, which is entitled “Building a Bright Future Together”, what is the buzzword in this Policy Address? It is this word: new, n-e-w, new. I have given an account of Hong Kong entering a new era. I have briefly mentioned that we will shortly welcome a Legislative Council based on a new electoral system. And then we will be performing, or governing, with a new paradigm. There will be new impetus to Hong Kong’s economy and we can all welcome a new future. In practice, we shortly will welcome a new Legislative Council after the election on December 19. This seventh Legislative Council will take office from January 1 next year, and after another election on March 27 next year, the sixth-term Chief Executive will be elected and take office on July 1 next year.

With all these new things, new ideas and new scenarios, it is incumbent upon the current Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government to also give people this freshness in governance and also this innovation in taking Hong Kong forward. One of the initiatives that have been talked most after the Policy Address, which was touched upon by Connie (Chinese General Chamber of Commerce Vice-Chairman), is the Northern Metropolis. I have explained at length the Northern Metropolis, which I’m not going to repeat it here but if you want to ask me questions thereafter, I’m happy to respond.

How do we devise this Northern Metropolis Development Strategy? It was also guided by the following new features. One is a new spatial conceptualisation. We are looking beyond Hong Kong’s geographical spatial layout into Shenzhen, the Greater Bay Area and also the Mainland of China. It also displays a new mindset breakthrough. It contains a large number of new policy formulation and then we will shortly be putting in place a new institutional arrangement. All these four attributes of new innovation are interrelated. In other words, we could not just have a new spatial conceptualisation without having a new mindset in working and co-operating with the Mainland authorities. We could not have new policies without a new institutional arrangement to ensure that we could implement all these new initiatives. I hope that in future when you look at the Hong Kong SAR Government policies, you will appreciate that all these new concepts have seeped through the various things that we want to do for Hong Kong.

In the past four weeks, including two weeks when I was being incapacitated, I have been promoting this Policy Address on many, many occasions. And if you want me to give you a buzzword of the messages that I am sending out about Hong Kong’s future, it is this word: confidence. I am extremely confident about Hong Kong’s future and this confidence is built on a very solid basis. It’s not just wishful thinking or the way that I try to appease people that “let’s be confident”. It is built on very strong fundamentals and I will take you through these four aspects one by one.

Constitutional order restored

One is we have restored Hong Kong SAR’s constitutional order. We have not only restored this order and brought it back to the right track of “one country, two systems”, I would boldly say that perhaps this is the first time since 1997 that we can deliver “one country, two systems” confidently for the people of China, not only for the people of Hong Kong. This outcome is attributed to two decisive acts by the central authorities. The enactment and implementation of the National Security Law on June 30 last year, and by the way I must stress again, the National Security Law is not just about punishing people who have committed national security crimes, it is also about preventing and suppressing acts or activities that will endanger national security.

The second decisive act is the electoral arrangements, amendments to Annex I and Annex II of the Basic Law, which will usher in a new Legislative Council, which I’m quite certain will be far more rational, far more pragmatic and governed by people who are patriotic. But that doesn’t mean that we are going to have one voice in the Legislative Council. We are looking for inclusiveness. So as long as any person who is patriotic and who could pass the scrutiny by the Candidate Eligibility Review Committee, he or she is more than welcome to join in this election because of the importance we attach to inclusiveness, diversity. We’d love to see the Legislative Council together with the Executive to strive to build consensus. We can agree to disagree on some of the things but at the end of the day we need to move forward. For example, the Government introduced half a year ago a piece of legislation to amend the Medical Registration Ordinance in order to bring in non-locally trained doctors. This bill was now passed but it has been subject to very extensive amendments in order to reflect the opinion of the Legislative Council members, which in turn, I believe, reflect the community aspirations that we should be even more open, even more innovative in bringing in non-locally trained doctors because of the shortage of medical manpower in Hong Kong, which has been the cause of a lot of complaints by the common people. On this occasion, since we are still in the candidate nomination period, I would urge every one of you for your active participation in this coming election, both in terms of nominating suitable candidates to stand for election, engaging confirmed candidates in the course of their electioneering campaigns - we should ask them questions “What’s their manifesto? What’s their vision for Hong Kong?” - and finally, on December 19, casting your vote and encouraging your friends and family members and relatives to cast their votes. This is a vote of confidence in Hong Kong’s future and Hong Kong’s constitutional order.

The second basis of my confidence about Hong Kong’s future is that Hong Kong’s fundamental strengths have not been weakened or eroded by what has happened in Hong Kong in the last two years or so, particularly the riots in the latter half of 2019 and the enactment of the National Security Law. On the contrary, as a result of all these things that have happened, which were quite unprecedented in Hong Kong’s history, many people came to appreciate much better these fundamental strengths of Hong Kong.

First and foremost is the rule of law. The rule of law is as robust as ever, despite a lot of smearing and coercing that overseas judges should no longer sit on the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal. We actually have seen new judges – I have appointed a new lord of the UK to become a new judge of the Court of Final Appeal, and at least two serving judges have accepted my invitations to be reappointed to the Court of Final Appeal. We continue to have a very visible, very transparent and very independent judiciary which has been adjudicating cases including cases on national security without fear or favour. Hong Kong has been made one of the most popular arbitration centres by a UK college. I think we are now the world’s number three in being the choice of arbitration centre by corporations.

Hong Kong has regained its position as one of the safest cities in the world according to the latest ranking released by The Economist. We dropped to the world’s number 20 in the aftermath of 2019. We are now back to the world’s number eight. I am sure we could continue to do better with our excellent Police Force. In terms of our financial services, we used to be number three after New York and London, then since the latter half of 2019, we dropped to number six and then gradually, and successively, we regained our third position in the latest index released by the Global Financial Centres Index institutions. In terms of our higher education, despite the fact that many of the students were involved in the riots and the chaotic situation in universities, four or five of Hong Kong’s universities are ranked amongst the world’s 100, depending on which ranking index you look at. The University of Hong Kong actually rose to being the world’s number 30, which is the highest ranking ever achieved by a Hong Kong university in the past decade.

Our robust economy

Fraser Institute continued to rank Hong Kong as the freest economy in the world, in their latest report released earlier this year. And what is even more exciting is, as a recognition of the investment and work done on promoting innovation and technology in Hong Kong, the IMD (Institute for Management Development), which is a Lausanne-based Swiss institution, the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking has put Hong Kong as the world’s number two, only after the US. The list will continue as we move on. I’m sure we will regain either some of the things that we have lost as a result of those challenges and even excel in other areas.

The third basis of confidence is hard data. Let’s look at some of the hard data to demonstrate how resilient Hong Kong’s economy is. The provisional third quarter GDP (Gross Domestic Product) figures were released yesterday. Some said that it was slightly less than expectation - at year-on-year 5.4%, but taking the first three quarters together, Hong Kong fared quite well at a year-on-year growth of 7%, and that's why my economist colleagues were quite optimistic that, on a whole year basis, we probably would be making the high end of the range, which is 5.5% to 6.5%.

In terms of merchandise trade, because of the significant and speedy recovery in the Mainland manufacturing, the merchandise trade actually has broken a record. In the first nine months, I think total import and export of goods amounted to $7.300 trillion, which was a two-digit growth over the historic high back in 2018. Assets under management also rose by double digits, air cargo volume registered double-digit growth year on year in the first half of this year; retail figures were also good. Later this afternoon at 4.30pm, the Government will announce the September retail figures and they are good. I could not disclose to you the exact figure, but the figure looks good, partly because of the consumption voucher. Unemployment has dropped from the high point of 7.2% per cent at the beginning of this year to the latest three-month figure of 4.5%. We have seen a lot of job vacancies being advertised in the Labour Department and other forum, suggesting that maybe we are going into a shortage of labour in some of the sectors, for example the F&B (Food & Beverage) sector. Even applications for social security, as a result of unemployment, has dropped by over 50% year on year.

All these figures confirmed that Hong Kong's economy is very resilient, that Hong Kong people are very resilient. When circumstances improve, we will bounce back, and bounce back pretty quickly. Hong Kong people are also very good consumers, if you look at the good business in the F&B sector. Somebody told me that Lan Kwai Fong has never had such good business, not even pre-pandemic, perhaps again on the historic basis. And even horse racing turnover last season broke the record. On the first day of this year’s season, at which I officiated, again it was a historic record in terms of turnover.

And finally, Hong Kong athletes have made us so proud in four successive major games, the Tokyo Olympic Games, the Tokyo Paralympics, the National Games and the National Games for Persons with Disabilities. We've fetched so many gold medals. This is Hong Kong. Hong Kong will bounce back. There is absolutely no worry about Hong Kong despite the smearing and bad-mouthing and negative reporting in some quarters.

The fourth and final basis of the confidence is the staunch and unfailing support of the central government. And this, I am telling you first-hand, as the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR, whether in bad times or in good times, the central government is always our strongest support ever. In March this year, we had the 14th Five-Year Plan promulgated. For the first time, apart from giving us support in the four traditional economic sectors – that is finance, trading, transportation and legal – for the first time, they said that they will support Hong Kong to become an international innovation and technology hub, an art and cultural exchange hub, IP trading hub in Asia Pacific, and also an international aviation centre. You have all these fact sheets of the eight centres in the folder distributed to you over lunch. On top of that, as the country is moving into the “dual circulation”, no place stands better than in Hong Kong in capitalising on this “dual circulation”, whether in the domestic economy or as the Mainland economy goes global. We are the bridge, the gateway and the connector, whichever way you call it. We are here to serve the country and also to benefit. On financial services alone, since August this year, we have witnessed the introduction of A-shares trading in Hong Kong, the Southbound Trading under Bond Connect, and the much-awaited GBA Cross-boundary Wealth Management Connect Scheme. And also we welcomed for the first time the issuance of bonds by a municipal government in Hong Kong and that is Shenzhen.

It is against the above backdrop and amidst that confidence that I have for Hong Kong, that I and my colleagues compiled the 2021 Policy Address. I hope this Policy Address is matched with your support and enthusiasm and we will act in concert to make sure that we could deliver this vision for Hong Kong, especially for our younger generation.

App's use appeal

Meanwhile, I have no doubt that on the top of your mind is when we can resume travel with the Mainland and with overseas. I can only assure you that this is also on the top of my agenda. We are working very hard to achieve this goal and as you notice, we have been introducing measures which many people feel are unjustified. Hong Kong is already at zero infections. Why do you have to do all these things which give us a little bit of trouble and inconvenience? I am sorry – I know some Consuls General are in the audience – I am sorry about that, but we have to do that in order to achieve the goal together. My final appeal is: please help us in promoting, or even mandating the use of the LeaveHomeSafe mobile app when entering your business premises or institutions, and also encourage Hong Kong people, especially elderly people, to take the jab. Thank you very much.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam gave these remarks at the Joint Business Community Luncheon on November 2.