Discussions on the Northern Metropolis development continue with HKGFA’s Executive Vice President, Ms. Tracy Wong Harris, participating in the BEC EnviroSeries Conference: Blueprint for Green Prosperity: Financing Economy, Natural Capital, and Resilience in the Northern Metropolis event on 28 May 2026.

During the panel, “Catalysing the Transition: The Power of Partnership in Financing the Future”, moderated by Mr. Merlin Lao (Business Environment Council), Tracy was joined by Ms. Frances Chen (HSBC), Mr. Alvis Kong (Deloitte), Ms. Sophie Le Clue (ADM Capital Foundation), Mr. Ryan Ip (Our Hong Kong Foundation) where they discussed how to effectively mobilise large-scale capital for the development of Northern Metropolis (NM).

Tracy highlighted three structured foundations required to draw in institutional capital:

• Governance & Structural Clarity: Establishing Bankruptcy-remote Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) in new development areas with robust institutional structures, clear procurement guidelines, and strong governance frameworks, potentially leveraging Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) to help shape them.
• Explicit Risk Allocation: Exploring partial credit guarantees or availability-based payment structures is essential to attract institutional investors. A prime example is the recent Pakistan sovereign Panda Bond, where an innovative partial credit guarantee structure from the AIIB and ADB successfully elevated the issue’s credit rating to a domestic AAA. This risk-mitigation tool directly built market confidence, resulting in the bond being oversubscribed more than fivefold.
• Cornerstone Participation: Strengthening market signals through strategic partnerships. A key example being the Actis Asia Climate Transition Fund, anchored by the HKMA alongside the ADB, AIIB, and IFC, which aims to deploy vital capital into net-zero, decarbonisation, and climate transition assets across the region.

Tracy also emphasised the vital role of catalytic platforms in driving scalability. By blending capital, bringing in DFI, MDB, philanthropy and family offices to provide catalytic capital can unlock more private capital like insurance companies and pension funds at scale. She also pointed to the Bahamas sovereign debt structure as a model, where long-term conservation commitments secured credit guarantees, and suggested how similar frameworks could fund blue and green development goals in the NM.

The NM remains a strategic key theme for HKGFA. Through active industry dialogue and cross-sector partnerships, HKGFA is fully committed to mobilising sustainable financing and fostering public-private-philanthropic partnerships to support developing the NM into a vibrant, low-carbon, and highly resilient community.