Author｜Liu Jingfeng, Teng Fei
In the first half of 2025, Hong Kong’s capital market delivered an impressive performance:
IPO fundraising reached HK$106.7 billion, reclaiming the top spot globally; assets under management exceeded US$4 trillion; and the Hang Seng Index rose by a cumulative 20%.
Behind these achievements lies the deeper value of Hong Kong as a “super connector.”
At the Bund Summit, Lu Chenjian, Vice President of Global Listing Services at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX), pointed out that the “New Tech Connect” initiative launched this year allows Mainland technology companies to submit applications confidentially, giving innovative enterprises greater flexibility. These measures have enabled Hong Kong to continuously attract a large number of high-quality, high-growth companies.
In addition, Hong Kong’s tax regime has also encouraged companies to establish “corporate treasury centers.” For example, with the profits tax rate halved to 8.25% (for the first HK$2 million in profits), Hong Kong has attracted more than 3,800 multinational headquarters to set up operations.
At the conference, King Leung, Global Head of Financial Services and FinTech, as well as Global Head of Sustainable Development at Invest Hong Kong, remarked that despite facing numerous challenges in recent years, Hong Kong’s regulators, financial institutions, and businesses have remained united, creating a favorable business environment that demonstrates the city’s resilience. He also noted that Hong Kong’s regulatory bodies are “outward-looking,” proactively engaging with overseas regulators and continuously innovating in their regulatory approaches through such exchanges.
Having great projects also requires the support of patient capital.
To this end, Hong Kong has been actively attracting family offices focused on long-term investment in recent years. According to Invest Hong Kong, during the first five months of 2025, the agency assisted 50 family offices in setting up or expanding their operations in Hong Kong — a 19% increase compared to the same period last year. In addition, around 150 family offices are currently preparing to establish a presence in the city.
Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary, Paul Chan Mo-po, previously stated that international capital is flowing into Hong Kong at a pace of HK$1.9 billion per day, bringing the city’s total assets under management to HK$35 trillion (approximately US$4.5 trillion).
From a broader perspective, Hong Kong’s renewed dynamism reflects the city’s proactive efforts to reposition itself and align with the nation’s strategic direction amid shifts in the global trade and economic landscape.
As global trade and supply chains undergo restructuring, Chinese enterprises are accelerating their international expansion. Leveraging its unique advantages under the “one country, two systems” framework, Hong Kong—one of the world’s leading international financial centers—serves as a vital bridge connecting the Mainland and the world. Domestically, it actively links with Mainland enterprises, especially technology and innovation companies, becoming their preferred platform for raising international capital to fuel global growth. Externally, it continues to expand cooperation with overseas financial markets. In recent years, the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) has added the Saudi Exchange, Indonesia Stock Exchange, Stock Exchange of Thailand, Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, and Dubai Financial Market to its list of recognized exchanges.
As Victor Lui, Senior Vice President (Startups) at Invest Hong Kong, put it:
“Hong Kong is not only a springboard for Mainland enterprises to go global, but also a gateway for innovative solutions to enter Asia.”
If Hong Kong can be seen as the “gateway to the world,” then Shanghai is the “engine” driving China’s innovation.
Diao Zhihai, Head of International Wealth Management at China International Capital Corporation (CICC), put it clearly: “Shanghai is home to a vast number of hard-tech companies and new consumer brands. The convergence of technology and consumption represents the next wave of IPOs in Hong Kong. In addition, sectors such as new energy, new materials, and biomedicine—all key areas of the country’s new quality productive forces—are thriving.”
In recent years, beyond its role as an international financial hub, Shanghai has also demonstrated strong growth potential in artificial intelligence. During this year’s Bund Summit, the UK-based Global Artificial Intelligence Industry Ecosystem Association released an index ranking Shanghai sixth in the world for comprehensive AI capability—surpassing cities such as Tokyo.
Another emerging trend is the increasingly close collaboration between Hong Kong and Shanghai, particularly as China rises in fields like artificial intelligence and hard technology. This “twin-city synergy” is empowering technology enterprises to expand globally with greater strength and confidence.
Shanghai has also continued to advance its financial technology ecosystem, introducing supportive policies and promoting the application of innovative technologies—providing strong momentum for the industry’s sustainable development.
In September 2024, Shanghai unveiled the Action Plan for Building a High-Quality Global FinTech Center, setting a clear goal of establishing a globally leading fintech hub within three to five years, supported by a series of innovative policies.
The following year, Huangpu District took the lead by pledging no less than RMB 500 million in industrial funding annually, providing up to RMB 100 million in direct financial support for industry-leading and breakthrough technology enterprises. These initiatives aim to continuously foster fintech clustering and innovation in practice.
Under these measures, Shanghai has become the primary hub for leading fintech enterprises in China, and its development momentum continues to accelerate.
In the Forbes China Top 50 Most Influential FinTech Companies 2024 ranking, Shanghai-based firms accounted for 40% of the list, underscoring the city’s strong leadership and pronounced clustering effect. Technology giants such as Ant Group, along with major financial institutions, have established fintech subsidiaries in Shanghai, forming a vibrant and complete innovation ecosystem.
From top-level planning to industrial clustering, from policy support to technological leadership, Shanghai has built a comprehensive and multi-layered advantage in fintech development. This gives the city a unique edge in helping enterprises expand their international presence.
While Shanghai provides technological solutions and product capabilities, Hong Kong serves as the testing ground for international regulatory alignment. Together, the two cities are expected to create a shared resource pool for Chinese enterprises going global.
This collaboration forms a complete loop of “technology + regulation + market,” a synergistic model that not only strengthens Chinese enterprises’ foothold in global markets but also represents a “China paradigm” for the Outreach 4.0 era—a new generation of globalization defined by technological innovation, regulatory cooperation, and ecosystem co-prosperity.
Shanghai and Hong Kong—rooted domestic yet connected to the world, driven by technology and finance respectively.
King Leung , Global Head of Financial Services, FinTech, and Sustainable Development, Invest Hong Kong
With the acceleration of global digitalization and the upgrading of consumption in emerging markets, the profile of enterprises going global has shifted. Whereas previously large traditional companies dominated, today it is mainly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), particularly tech-driven SMEs in fintech, cross-border e-commerce, SaaS, and smart hardware. These companies urgently need lightweight, efficient, and low-cost paths to international expansion.
The 2025 China SME Going Global Blue Book shows that the scale of Chinese SMEs going global grew by 23% year-on-year in 2024. However, these agile pioneers face a dual challenge: SMEs naturally have limitations in funding reserves and channel coverage, while emerging markets present more diverse challenges compared with mature markets in Europe and North America. Under such internal and external pressures, the difficulty of internationalization increases exponentially.
For example, research indicates that 33% of cross-border companies consider foreign exchange (FX) to have a major impact on their overseas operations, while 52% see it as a significant factor.
Today, technology is helping solve these challenges. Ant International, for instance, has developed the Eagle TST AI FX model, which can accurately forecast cash flow and FX exposure on hourly, daily, and weekly frequencies, reducing FX transaction costs by up to 40%. Li Yue, General Manager of Platform Technology at Ant International, notes: “Breakthroughs in treasury management are particularly suited to enterprises engaged in multinational operations with high demand for real-time multi-currency cash allocation—such as travel, e-commerce, and digital entertainment. In the future, even more SMEs will be able to access enterprise-grade treasury technology services.”
Against this backdrop, many domestic technology firms are leveraging AI and ecosystem capabilities to help SMEs overcome the bottlenecks of going global efficiently.
Shi Wenyi, CEO of Ant International’s Global Corporate Accounts Service – Wanlihui, shares two key trends from their experience: “AI adoption” and “ecosystem-enabled internationalization” are among the most significant shifts in recent years. True global expansion has never been a solo endeavor; it requires upstream and downstream enterprises to work together. Based on service experience with millions of cross-border companies, Wanlihui has undertaken multiple upgrades over the past year to better support enterprises going global.
Chinese enterprises are now entering a new stage of internationalization characterized by ecosystem enablement and technological integration.
In this process, the synergy between Shanghai and Hong Kong is particularly crucial. Shanghai, as a hub of technological R&D and scenario innovation, continues to refine underlying technologies such as AI and blockchain into mature solutions. Hong Kong, with its highly internationalized financial system and unique role as a “super connector,” serves as the preferred testing ground for regulatory alignment, stress testing, and international rollout of these technological solutions.
Whether you are a hard-tech enterprise, a new consumer brand, or a SaaS provider, leveraging the Shanghai-Hong Kong twin-city resource pool enables you to move more steadily, quickly, and far along the path to global expansion.
As King Leung aptly puts it to describe the Shanghai-Hong Kong collaboration: “Two strong forces joining hands, facing the world.”