Hong Kong inked nine memorandums of cooperation and agreement with participants of the Belt and Road Initiative, together with 36 commercial deals, as Hong Kong’s Belt and Road Summit kicked off on Wednesday.

The annual event’s 10th edition, this year’s gathering attracted 6,000 leaders and guests from various countries, international organizations and enterprises.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu revealed that the nine MOUs touch on official cooperation in areas such as dispute avoidance and resolution, Customs, and anti-corruption efforts.

Additionally, 36 commercial agreements were announced at the event across finance, technology, logistics, education, and professional services — collectively valued at nearly $1 billion.

“Hong Kong is an ideal Belt and Road hub, connecting Asia with the world as a super-connector and super value-adder. Hong Kong, being dynamic, innovative, and sustainable, will continue to promote high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI),” Lee told dignitaries.  

He highlighted that Hong Kong's success as a critical platform for the BRI stems from its unique "one country, two systems" framework, which is supported by a mature legal system and judicial institutions that provide investors with the necessary safeguards. The principle of the "one country, two systems" framework also ensures Hong Kong's continued prosperity and development as an international hub for cultural exchange between East and West, Lee said.

This year’s event was a run-on of a well-spent decade for the flagship venture. Since 2016, it has presented over 700 global speakers, featured some 660 exhibitors, drawn around 45,000 participants from over 120 countries and regions, facilitated 5,400-plus meetings, and nourished 2,800 projects in infrastructure, green energy, finance, and technology.

“And that’s just the beginning,” said Lee, “the beginning of another decade of business, of investment, and of cooperation.”

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Inaugurated in 2013, 12 years of development have seen China’s trailblazing outward connectivity drive impress its global footprint from the Eurasian continent to Africa and Latin America.

Speaking at the same occasion, Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Commerce Yan Dong, said the central government is studying the establishment of a single free trade zone encompassing the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, and Macao, and the ministry supports Hong Kong's early accession to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) to further expand its external economic and trade networks.

In 2024, the trade volume between China and other BRI participating countries reached $3.1 trillion, which accounted for over half of the country’s total foreign trade, Yan said.

Hong Kong — standing in pole position among the globe’s most open economies, a premier trade and financial hub, anchored by a free-port regime and world-class logistics capacity — was praised by top officials and executives from the mainland and the SAR as a linchpin of this national strategy’s real-time implementation.

The city is running on full throttle to forge a broader global trade network, according to Lee, having sealed free trade agreements with 14 BRI countries and regions, investment pacts with some 20 economies involved, as well as comprehensive double taxation agreements with 37 BRI jurisdictions.

Since 2013, Hong Kong’s external trade with BRI economies has rocketed by nearly 80 percent, climbing in value to exceeded $276 billion by 2024 — a growth rate over three times that of the city’s overall external trade in the same timeframe, Lee added. Some 1,400 companies from Belt and Road countries have established a base in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong’s Belt and Road Summit — co-organized by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council — is poised to host as speakers over 90 top officials and executives from 18 BRI-involved economies under the banner “collaborate for change and shape a shared future.”

Contact the writer at wanqing@chinadailyhk.com