What industries does Hong Kong rely on to support its development now?

According to a press release from the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department:

"These four major industries drive the development of other industries and create jobs, which are the driving force of Hong Kong's economy."

In fact, these major industries are indeed driving Hong Kong's economic development.

In the ten years from 2005 to 2015, Hong Kong’s local GDP increased from HK$1.4 trillion to HK$2.4 trillion, of which four major industries accounted for about half.

Of course, now there is another pillar, and that is Hong Kong’s real estate. The proportion of real estate in the economy is gradually increasing. Just look at the housing prices in Hong Kong. In the past, when mainlanders went to Hong Kong, they valued Hong Kong's positioning as a financial center. The developed financial services are actually very attractive to international trade. But now we look at the relevant news. Basically, mainland rich people go to Hong Kong to buy luxury homes and thousands of dollars. The price of buying a luxury house of 100 square feet or a luxury house in the middle of the mountain is staggering.

However, traditional industries are both opportunities and constraints. Therefore, Hong Kong has lacked advantages in technological competition in recent years. As a result, Hong Kong has also been worried about attracting scientific and technological talents, and now it has begun to steal them from all over the world

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Technical talents.

Hong Kong has the saying of "four pillar industries", namely financial services, trade and logistics, tourism and business support, and professional services. These pillar industries are built on the hard work of generations of Hong Kong people and are directly related to Hong Kong’s special history and geographical factors. In the 20 years since its return to the motherland, as the surrounding environment has undergone tremendous changes, Hong Kong is bound to explore new development ideas and accurately position itself in the tide of China's economic development.

Leap-forward growth stage

For Hong Kong, industrial upgrading and relocation are nothing new.

In the 1950s, Hong Kong’s re-export trade emerged. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Hong Kong actively developed its manufacturing industry. Labor-intensive industries such as textiles, garments, and electronics grew rapidly and led to industrial diversification. This is a stage of development that has benefited Hong Kong a lot. The manufacturing industry accounts for more than 30% of the overall economy, laying the foundation for Hong Kong to become one of the Four Asian Tigers.

During China's reform and opening up in the 1980s, Hong Kong's manufacturing industry moved northward, and the proportion of the secondary industry dropped from 31.8% in 1980 to 14.6% in 1997. Hong Kong's industrial structure has been lightened and transformed into a service economy, with the tertiary industry growing rapidly. From the data point of view, this is the fastest development stage in Hong Kong's history. Per capita GDP has increased more than 6 times, making it one of the top ten or five in the world. It is also the most high-spirited era for Hong Kong. The main driving force for such rapid development is the service industry. Since 1983, the growth rate has been as high as 17%. No other region in the world can compare with it. Among them, the growth rate of "modern service industries" such as finance, insurance, real estate, and business services is as high as 21%.

Two waves of strong stimulus in the manufacturing and service industries have made Hong Kong the dazzling "Pearl of the Orient". In the early 1990s, Hong Kong's GDP was equivalent to one-fifth of mainland China, reaching an unimaginable and historically high ratio. In the first 20 years of China's reform and opening up, it can be said that Hong Kong benefited the most, and its development rate exceeded that of mainland cities. At this time, Hong Kong had a great cultural influence. Films, TV shows and songs were very popular in East Asia and had a considerable status around the world.

The super growth in the 1980s and 1990s made Hong Kong an international financial center in the Asia-Pacific. More than 500 banks gather here, and 85 of the world's top 100 banks have entered Hong Kong. There is the second largest stock market in Asia, the second largest foreign exchange market in the world, and the third largest gold market. Based on this, Hong Kong leads the entire Asia in fund management, stock analysis, financing planning, and business services. World-renowned consultants, legal consulting and accounting firms all use Hong Kong as an important base. Mainland China, which is still struggling in the manufacturing industry, does not know at this time that these lucrative modern financial industries are the pinnacle products of economic prosperity. Hong Kong seized this opportunity and achieved leapfrog growth in just 20 years.

Behind the super growth

But objectively speaking, Hong Kong is too small after all, and the foundation of this super growth is not solid. It relies largely on historical opportunities rather than Internal industries will naturally upgrade. The world's leading banking, financial, and consulting services companies come to Hong Kong not because of Hong Kong's own population of five to six million, but because of the entire Eastern world.

At this time, Hong Kong was the re-export center for mainland China’s exports to the world, and its transcendent status was unique in the world. Although Hong Kong's manufacturing industry has moved out, it still occupies an important position in South China's production network. Hong Kong manufacturers employed more than 5 million workers in the Pearl River Delta in 1996. High-end departments such as R&D, design, and marketing in the industrial chain are still in Hong Kong, which is the core of the entire industry. An important foundation for Hong Kong’s economy.

However, before Hong Kong's manufacturing industry moved north to South China, its level was not high. Even if it did not move, it would be difficult to naturally develop the world's top financial services and professional services industries. Hong Kong's industrial structure, led by financial services, is superficially similar to New York, London, and Tokyo. However, the supporting manufacturing and high-tech industry foundations behind it are far behind these top cities.

Therefore, although Hong Kong was in extreme economic prosperity in 1997, it was not without hidden worries. It is widely known that Hong Kong’s real estate bubble has caused house prices to rise more than 10 times in just over ten years. The financial crisis that swept across Asia in 1998 shattered people's optimistic expectations. By 2003, housing prices fell by more than 60%, and many people became insolvent or even bankrupt. For example, the famous singer Zhong Zhentao started speculating in real estate in 1996. After encountering the financial crisis, It was heavily in debt and filed for bankruptcy in 2002. However, housing prices have since slowly recovered and are now even much higher than the historical peak. The impact of the financial turmoil on Hong Kong is that the income of many people will never return to what it was before. Sales managers in Hong Kong have never recovered their income before 1998, which was one-third lower than it was then.

After Hong Kong's return to the motherland, it is not so much looking for a new path for industrial development, but rather that its economic foundation has been tested by various impacts. Hong Kong, which does not have a solid industrial foundation, cannot be optimistic in the face of these tests. Hong Kong's efforts to find new development directions are also constrained by its weak foundation, and few breakthroughs have been made.

In 2003, in order to support Hong Kong's economy, the central government and Hong Kong signed the "Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement" (CEPA), opening the vast mainland market to Hong Kong's service industry and other industries open. The most obvious one is "free travel". The number of mainland tourists traveling to Hong Kong has increased sharply year after year. In 2013, mainland tourists accounted for 75% of the total number of tourists, exceeding 40 million, which was 4.8 times that of 2013. With this strong support, Hong Kong's tourism industry has achieved breakthrough development after its return to the motherland. From 2003 to 2013, the spending of overnight tourists in Hong Kong surged 51 times, reaching HK$152.7 billion, and the tourism industry has become one of Hong Kong's pillar industries. However, due to the impact of the Occupy Central incident in September 2014, the tourism industry experienced sluggish growth.

The technology genes of Hong Kong’s industries

In the early days of Hong Kong’s return to the motherland, the information technology industry revolution was raging around the world. Hong Kong has also launched an industrial plan for the development of information technology, such as the Cyberport plan covering an area of ????24 hectares and investing 15.8 billion. Representative Li Zekai invested US$2.2 million in 1999 to hold 20% of Tencent's shares. Based on Tencent's latest market value of US$300 billion, if it holds shares to this day, its equity value will reach US$60 billion.

It is a good idea to transform from trade finance to knowledge technology. Information technology is indeed an excellent industry that can achieve rapid growth. If Hong Kong can seize this opportunity, it will be another industrial leap. Unfortunately, although Hong Kong has abundant capital, it lacks the ability to develop large IT companies.

Looking back, Hong Kong should use its financial advantages to recruit global IT talents and develop IT capabilities for the mainland market and the global market. However, Hong Kong's industrial development has historically lacked technology genes. Although the universities that have invested heavily in construction have the world's top infrastructure and faculty, their history is still short and it is difficult to match the industry.

Therefore, Hong Kong’s information technology development plan is superficial and divorced from the core of industrial development. Shenzhen, across the river, has captured the core of the development of software and hardware in the IT industry, and companies such as Huawei and Tencent have grown into top global companies. Hong Kong's IT companies have not found a suitable market, nor have they developed software or hardware products worth mentioning. They basically only make some small applications in small local markets.

In 2001, Li Zekai transferred his stake in Tencent to the South African MIH company for US$12.6 million. This kind of investment vision should not be criticized harshly. However, Hong Kong as a whole has not kept up with the IT era. Even e-commerce, Internet services, mobile payments, transaction software, and business software applications lag behind the mainland, reflecting serious flaws in Hong Kong's technological and industrial foundation.

Another major challenge facing Hong Kong is the upgrading of the manufacturing industry started by mainland Chinese companies after 2000.

In fact, in the late 1990s, Hong Kong-funded enterprises had a very important position in the mainland manufacturing industry and their position in the industrial chain was also very good. If they could keep up with the trend of technological upgrading in China, related enterprises in Hong Kong would also There is great development. However, the technical level of Hong Kong's manufacturing enterprises in the mainland is not high to begin with, and they focus on foreign trade exchanges, branding, and marketing. Compared with mainland entrepreneurs and state-owned enterprise groups, they lack the original instinctive attention to research and development. As mainland manufacturing companies continue to upgrade their industries, Hong Kong-funded companies are slowly falling away from the technological trend, and their original industrial chain advantages are gradually disintegrating. It is relatively easy for companies to recruit senior executives, managers, and salespeople in Hong Kong, but they lack accumulation when recruiting R&D. Under such circumstances, there has been a mismatch in talent resources. Even senior executives, managers, and salespeople have gradually declined in ability and income. Hong Kong technicians who were once famous for their superb skills are gradually withering away. Due to the regression of research and development, the already unstable industrial foundation has become quite unoptimistic 20 years after the return. Among the Four Asian Tigers, Hong Kong has almost the worst performance in terms of industrial base, and its per capita GDP has been surpassed by Singapore, which focuses on research and development.

Hong Kong has also proposed industrial concepts such as the "Chinese Medicine Port" and the "Technology Park", which are industrial parks similar to the Cyberport. However, due to the lack of R&D genes in the entire city, development has been tepid. It is envisaged to rely on heavy investment to create a technology park with rich output out of thin air. From a global perspective, there is a lack of successful precedents.

Relying on industry, industry-university-research cooperation and joint upgrading are more natural methods, and the foundation is industrial practice. Shenzhen, which lacks university resources, has made good progress in its high-tech transformation centered on industrial development, becoming the most prominent innovative city in China. At the same time, Hong Kong's manufacturing industry foundation was quietly disintegrating. Although heavy investments were made in technological innovation, it was difficult to achieve success.

Re-searching for positioning

The idea of ??making Hong Kong a shipping center and a regional development center cannot be realized by Hong Kong's unilateral efforts. It requires the cooperation of the entire region. Shortly after Hong Kong's return to the motherland, China joined the WTO, and import and export trade developed rapidly. Hong Kong, as a shipping center, actually benefited greatly. However, mainland cities also need to develop. In the past, they relied on Hong Kong. Once the conditions are met, it is a natural trend to carry out trade on their own. Hong Kong's container throughput has dropped from the first in the world to the fifth in the world. This is not a problem with the development strategy, but an inevitable result of the development of the mainland.

Looking at it now, Hong Kong’s advantageous industries are still very prominent. Industries such as finance, trade logistics, and tourism have a transcendent status among Chinese cities. The related industrial and commercial and professional services also have considerable advantages. It's just that in the 20 years since the return, these industrial advantages have been reduced to some extent, or they have relied on support from the mainland, which is disappointing. Hong Kong society has also shown a trend of "involution" because the industry has not made new breakthroughs. Hong Kong's economy is extremely dependent on the real estate business. The polarization between the rich and the poor is very serious. The supply is insufficient, housing prices are rising, and young people are living in poverty and lacking hope, which has also caused some social problems.

Hong Kong should realize that the rapid development before the return was not entirely due to its own efforts, but was caused by considerable geopolitical factors, and there were fundamental problems in high-end industries such as finance. We should not think too highly of ourselves just because of the seemingly high-end industries and ignore the close integration with the mainland economy. Hong Kong should assess the situation, lower its profile, join China's booming economic development, and find its own position.

China's economy is developing and evolving rapidly, and Hong Kong has made extremely outstanding achievements in the half century since the 1950s. It has accumulated a lot in various aspects such as capital, business network, and financial foundation, which has exerted a great influence on China's development. Development still has a lot to do. Hong Kong should be down-to-earth and give up some unfounded assumptions, and should not overemphasize the independence of the Special Administrative Region and place itself outside Chinese cities. Instead, it should follow the trend and find its own advantages in the context of China as a whole. It is a pity that due to some political disputes, although people of insight realize this general direction, Hong Kong still lacks sufficient knowledge about the direction of industrial development. Disputes continue over major projects such as the Hong Kong High Speed ??Rail and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, which have greatly affected development.

Looking to the future, if Hong Kong can gather political knowledge and receive strong support from the motherland, there is no reason why it will not develop well. The experience and lessons of Hong Kong’s industrial development since its return to China are worth summarizing. As long as we keep up with China’s overall progress, the future is worth looking forward to.

I wanted to find the latest statistics, but I couldn’t find it yet. I only found the Hong Kong Statistical Yearbook from 2002 to 2012.

The data is very clear. When Hong Kong was a main body, in the past ten years, it basically relied on the mainland to make money, and it was basically negative for other countries. So what kind of industry support are they?

First, finance, the finance that Hong Kong people are proud of, is actually, to put it bluntly, a piece of pork passing through the hands of different people, and everyone will have some lard stuck to their hands. Since China's reform and opening up, most of the funds coming in from the outside and the funds going out from the inside have to be settled through Hong Kong. The more pork is passed through, the fatter it becomes.

Second, transfer to port, commonly known as second-hand dealers. After the goods from the mainland come in, they are transferred and sent to all parts of the world. The other is that the goods from all over the world come in, are transferred and sent to the mainland.

Third, tourism, this is very small, accounting for no more than 10% of Hong Kong's economy.

Fourth, real estate, there is nothing to say about this, our own people exploit our own people.

Therefore, in general, Hong Kong relies on the mainland for its prosperity and development today.

The financial services industry is the most important and traditional economic pillar of Hong Kong. As the third largest financial center in the world, the financial services industry shoulders the important task of driving Hong Kong to develop into a knowledge-based economy. Every year, finance contributes more than 80% to Hong Kong's GDP.

The three major industries of real estate, import and export trade and tourism are also important pillars supporting Hong Kong's economic development, especially the proportion of the tourism industry that has been increasing year by year.

The financial industry is the most important traditional economic pillar of Hong Kong -Financial services industry; The financial services industry shoulders the important task of driving Hong Kong to develop into a knowledge-based economy.

Every year, the service industry contributes more than 80% to Hong Kong's GDP. Among them, real estate, finance, import and export trade and tourism are collectively known as the four leading industries of Hong Kong's economy.

It has many institutional advantages: free flow of funds, sound legal system and supervision, transparent and efficient market operations, highly internationalized talents and financial institutions, etc.

In the "Global Financial Center Index" ranking, Hong Kong has always been at the top, following London and New York. In recent years, the score gap has narrowed significantly. Hong Kong is also Asia's major asset management center, Asia's third largest banking center (73 of the world's top 100 banks operate in Hong Kong), and the world's sixth largest foreign exchange market.

Finance, shipping, entrepot trade, tourism

Hong Kong’s industries are now mainly finance and trade. Many large foreign companies do business with mainland China through intermediaries in Hong Kong. Hong Kong's status as a financial center is of great importance in the world. In the 1970s and 1980s, Hong Kong once had a manufacturing center. However, as costs increased, the manufacturing center slowly moved to Guangdong. Therefore, Hong Kong's current advantages are finance, trade and service industries...

The three carriages of Hong Kong's economic development: finance, tourism, and trade

The first is finance. Today's Hong Kong has developed Become the international trade, finance and shipping center in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2000, Hong Kong's GDP reached HK$1,271.7 billion and total trade reached HK$3,230.7 billion, making it the world's tenth largest trading entity. The port's container throughput reached 1,810 units, ranking first in the world; there are 154 banks with foreign capital. The number of banks ranks third in the world. At the end of 2000, the total market value of the Hong Kong stock market reached HK$4,862.5 billion, ranking ninth in the world. The daily turnover of the foreign exchange market reached US$79 billion, ranking seventh in the world. At the end of 2000, its foreign exchange reserves reached US$107.5 billion, ranking the seventh in the world. No. 3 in the world. Advantages of Hong Kong's economic development Hong Kong's advantages are that it is an international city with a convenient business environment, a complete legal system, free trade policies and information circulation, fair and open competition, as well as financial networks, communication infrastructure networks and other convenient factors. In addition, Hong Kong has huge fiscal reserves and foreign exchange reserves, a freely convertible stable currency, and a simple tax system with low tax rates. These advantages make Hong Kong develop into one of the highly competitive regions.

The second is tourism and shopping. Mainland Chinese people like to go to Hong Kong Disneyland and do all kinds of shopping. I won’t go into details here.

Finance, trade and logistics, professional services and tourism are Hong Kong's four pillar industries

1. Hong Kong is a highly mature international financial center.

It has many institutional advantages: free flow of funds, sound legal and regulatory systems, and transparent market operations. and high efficiency, highly internationalized talents and financial institutions, etc.

In the "Global Financial Center Index" ranking, Hong Kong has always been at the top, following London and New York. In recent years, the score gap has narrowed significantly. Hong Kong is also Asia's major asset management center, Asia's third largest banking center (73 of the world's top 100 banks operate in Hong Kong), and the world's sixth largest foreign exchange market. In terms of listing financing, Hong Kong ranked first in the world in terms of total IPO funds raised from 2009 to 2011. The national “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” supports Hong Kong’s development into an offshore RMB center and an international asset management center.

2. Hong Kong is the world's leading international trade and service center. It is one of the freest economic systems in the world and the tenth largest trading and economic system in the world. One of Hong Kong's unique advantages is its participation in international trade organizations under the name "Hong Kong, China".

3. Hong Kong has professional talents in business management and various service industries. Professional services have always been one of the most competitive industries in Hong Kong, among which legal, accounting, construction and related engineering and medical services have particularly outstanding advantages. . Hong Kong's professionals have internationally recognized professional qualifications, rich international networks and management experience, and are familiar with national conditions and the mainland market.

4. Hong Kong is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Asia. In 2012, the total number of tourists visiting Hong Kong exceeded 48.64 million, of which about 70% were from the mainland and the rest were from Europe, America and Asia.

Hong Kong is a diverse and integrated international city that not only retains traditional Chinese culture but is also influenced by Western fashion, giving it a unique local flavor. While actively developing a high-tech modern city, Hong Kong has great shopping and leisure destinations, internationally renowned wine and delicacies, attractive theme parks, pleasant natural scenery, unique cultural heritage such as temples, walled villages, Ancestral halls and buildings rich in Chinese and Western colors are the best places for sightseeing, business and family travel, as well as leisure and consumer travel.

Hong Kong is one of the world’s first-tier international cities and a special administrative region of my country.

Hong Kong has four major economic pillar industries, namely financial services, import and export trade and logistics, professional services, and tourism.

Hong Kong is closely following the motherland’s economic construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and its future development will be even more attractive. Insightful people from all over the world have integrated into the wave of economic development in the Greater Bay Area, and Hong Kong will be even more promising in the future. It is a place that people yearn for with vitality and great development.