HKGFA Chairman and President Dr Ma Jun: Hong Kong has the advantage of becoming an international GreenTech and GreenFi Centre
The Financial Secretary for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Mr. Paul Chan, delivered his 2023-24 Budget and emphasized that Hong Kong should seize the opportunity to become an international centre for green technology and finance. I believe this idea is timely and will also inject new and tremendous impetus into Hong Kong’s economic development. The reasons are as follows:
(1) Promoting green and low-carbon development and adopting the Paris Agreement is the strongest consensus of all mankind, and there is huge opportunity for international cooperation in this field and for Hong Kong to utilize technology and capital from all around the world to help the achieve the national goals of “carbon peaking” and “carbon neutrality”;
(2) Hong Kong has a strong capital market foundation that supports the development of green finance, leading green bond issuance internationally and has the capacity to further develop green PE and VC to support green and low-carbon technologies in Hong Kong, Mainland China.
(3) Hong Kong has set the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, ten years earlier than the mainland’s 2060 target. As such, Hong Kong may facilitate early deployment of critical technologies in the areas of clean energy, energy storage, clean energy vehicles, green buildings, and solid waste utilization, which will have a solid foundation for being promoted throughout Mainland China, and “Belt and Road” region.
(4) Hong Kong has set the goal to increase innovation in science and technology, in addition to tackling resourcing gaps in talent, land and capital. The construction of the science and technology innovation ecosystem is expected to provide favourable conditions for the development of green technology.
Mr. Paul Chan has proposed the formation of the “Green Technology and Finance Development Committee” to contribute to Hong Kong’s development into a GreenTech and GreenFi Centre. I believe that the Committee can explore ways to foster and build a local ecosystem for green technology innovation, including establishing incubators, accelerators, fund of funds, an assessment and certification system, and a capital matching platform. for green technology development; strengthening cooperation with the mainland and international markets, and utilization of the carbon markets.
The Hong Kong Green Finance Association and the Greater Bay Area Green Finance Alliance stands behind Hong Kong’s vision and are keen to mobilize industry resources to actively support and engage in Hong Kong’s ambitious plan to become a GreenTech and GreenFi Centre.
(The author is the Chairman and President of the Hong Kong Green Finance Association, the Rotating Chairman of the Greater Bay Area Green Finance Alliance, and the Convenor of the Hong Kong Green Technology Research Group)