Speech by FS at LEAP East 2026 Opening Ceremony (English only) (with photos/video)
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Your Excellency Minister Alswaha (Minister of Communications and Information Technology of Saudi Arabia, Mr Abdullah Alswaha), distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning, and welcome to Hong Kong.
I am delighted that this very first LEAP conference held outside Saudi Arabia is in Hong Kong. We are honoured that you have chosen us as your partner for this new chapter. With some 35 000 participants from over 30 countries and territories, this turnout speaks volumes about the global appeal of LEAP East and the strength of our shared vision.
This conference builds on the deepening ties between Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong across finance, technology, infrastructure and trade, forged through frequent high-level interaction and visits by senior officials and business delegations. My sincere thanks to Minister Alswaha and his team, both for their leadership and for making the journey to Hong Kong. While you are here, I hope you will find time to enjoy the very best of our hospitality.
Today, I would like to focus my remarks on two questions: why Hong Kong is an ideal base for innovation; and how Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia - and the wider Middle East region - can seize the opportunities before us, together.
Hong Kong's value proposition
Hong Kong is perhaps the only city in the world that connects seamlessly to both the Chinese Mainland and the rest of the world at the same time. Working under the common law system, we have robust protection for intellectual property. As a free port, capital, goods, talent and data freely flow in and out of this city. Simple, low tax is a standing feature of our regime. And we are one of the safest, most stable cities anywhere in the world. These are the foundations on which businesses, talent and creativity thrive.
We have built a burgeoning innovation and technology ecosystem, with a growing pipeline of promising start-ups and future unicorns. With strong support under the National 15th Five-Year Plan, Hong Kong is fast emerging as a leading international innovation hub. The Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry will share more shortly, so allow me to set out the bigger picture - how we support innovation, anchored in three key strategies.
First: "Finance+" and vibrant capital markets
Innovation needs capital, and Hong Kong is where capital and ideas meet. This is the heart of our "Finance+" strategy - using finance as a powerful enabler to drive the real economy.
Our capital markets are growing not only in scale, but also in breadth and depth. Hong Kong topped the world in IPO (initial public offering) in 2025, with 119 listings raising some US$35 billion, including many world tech champions. This year, the momentum is even more promising. We are a destination of choice for emerging Chinese and international technology companies to raise funds for global expansion. This is a genuine win-win: Companies can tap our active markets to fuel R&D and scale up at home and abroad, while investors gain direct access to the enormous upside of China's innovation-led growth.
This is aided by our various "Connect" schemes, where international investors can access high-quality Mainland enterprises, while Mainland investors can invest in companies listed in Hong Kong.
Public markets, of course, are only part of our success story. Our venture capital and private equity ecosystem is managing over US$230 billion, second only to the Chinese Mainland in Asia.
And for frontier technologies that call for patient capital, the Hong Kong Investment Corporation - our Government's investment flagship - has already invested in more than 200 projects, attracting over eight dollars of co-investment by international long-term capital for every dollar it invests. With an initial capital of around US$8 billion, and further injections planned later this year, it will continue to back companies looking to grow from Hong Kong into the international arena.
Fintech, in particular, is an important part of this strategy. In Hong Kong, we embrace digital assets because we see their potential to make transactions more efficient, more inclusive, and at lower costs. At the same time, we balance pro-innovation policies with regulation, keeping them within proper guardrails - so that the sector can grow with credibility, while investors and the public are protected.
Second: harnessing "AI+"
Parallel to our "Finance+" strategy is our focus on AI, which is a major engine of innovation. We have an AI+ vision: to develop AI as a strategic industry in its own right, while harnessing it as a powerful enabler across different sectors of the economy.
Hong Kong has everything it takes to build AI into a powerful industry - computing power, algorithms, data, application scenarios, talent and capital. Across every sector, from finance and industry to healthcare and education, AI is already being put to work. At the government level, we have established the Committee on AI+ and Industry Development Strategy, bringing together leaders from industry and academia to explore how AI can best transform our key sectors.
At the same time, we spare no efforts in nurturing talent and raising digital literacy through our AI Training for All initiative, because we believe our community must know how to work with AI - using it to create value, while staying alert to its potential risks.
Third: integrating technology, talent, education and industry
Our third strategy is to bring technology, education, talent and industry closely together, fostering a virtuous cycle in which one reinforces another.
The centrepiece here is the Northern Metropolis. Bordering Shenzhen, it will be home to multiple innovation and technology parks, including the Hetao area. Over there, people, goods, capital, data, and even biosamples will move efficiently across the border. It will create a truly unique cross-boundary innovation space, and an ideal base for international AI, biotech and other cutting-edge industries to conduct research, test the outcomes and deploy them at scale, hand in hand with Mainland partners.
In the western part of the Northern Metropolis, we are also developing a 1 000-hectare university town district, where leading universities, research institutes and enterprises will sit side by side, in a vibrant community where research outcomes can move quickly from the laboratory to the real world, and scale up.
Which brings me to the deepening collaboration within the cities of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). What makes the GBA so special is the way it weaves capital, innovation, higher education, talent and industry development into a single, integrated whole.
The Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou cluster ranks first in the world for innovation, and its supply chains are equally impressive. A robotic company in the GBA, for instance, can source almost every component it needs within half an hour's drive. With Hong Kong's international financial centre at its core, the GBA indeed offers something no other region can: the combined strengths of a global financial hub, an innovation powerhouse and an advanced manufacturing base - backed by an affluent population of 88 million, and a potential market of 2.1 billion people across China and Southeast Asia.
Working with Saudi Arabia and the Middle East
Ladies and gentlemen, there is enormous potential for us - Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia - to do more together. Both of us are gateways to our respective regions, and our capital markets are already linked - through mutual listings of exchange-traded funds, a milestone I was privileged to witness two years ago.
We warmly welcome Saudi and Gulf enterprises to leverage Hong Kong's capital markets - through listings, bond issuance, asset management, or other partnerships. Let Hong Kong be your international fundraising and risk-management platform, connecting you with investors and markets across Asia and beyond.
Your ambitious transformation agenda, Vision 2030, inspires me on every visit. Hong Kong is precisely the gateway and platform where proven frontier technology and advanced manufacturing businesses from the region can settle in Saudi Arabia and expand across Europe and Africa. I plan to lead a delegation to Saudi Arabia again later this year, bringing leading companies in infrastructure, green tech, healthcare and advanced manufacturing, plus professionals in the finance, investment and professional services sector, to explore concrete projects that will advance your goals and deepen our partnership.
Closing
In the end, it all comes down to friendship and connection - between people, between ideas, between capital and opportunity. That is what LEAP is about: building those connections across regions and across cultures, on the basis of trust and friendship.
On that note, I wish this conference every success, and I am particularly delighted to note that this conference will continue to be held in Hong Kong in the coming three years. I am confident that the partnership between Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia will grow even stronger in the many years to come. Thank you very much.
Ends/Wednesday, July 8, 2026
Issued at HKT 12:48
Issued at HKT 12:48
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