BEIJING - Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee on Wednesday announced a slew of measures to attract global talent and businesses, while also focusing on maintaining security in a wide-ranging speech setting out his administration’s priorities for the next year.

These include a specialised office to attract “strategic enterprises”, with offices around the world to attract businesses to set up shop in Hong Kong as well as recruit talent, including special visa schemes allowing for such individuals to easily enter the city.

Mr Lee also set aside HK$30 billion (S$5.43 billion) for a “co-investment fund” to attract firms to the city.

“Hong Kong is one of the most competitive economies in the world. It also serves as an important gateway connecting the mainland with global markets,” he told lawmakers in the Legislative Council (LegCo).

“We must be more proactive and aggressive in competing for enterprise’ and competing for talents.”

The city has been battered economically since it enacted strict Covid-19 control policies, choking off the flow of international travellersto the aviation hub.

In the past two years, Hong Kong has lost about 140,000 workers, Mr Lee said, the first time the government has acknowledged its talent drain.

It is set to end the year in a full-blown recession and has seen its fiscal deficit soar.

Strict restrictions meant that companies and expatriates started relocating to other countries, including Singapore.

The measures announced are the most aggressive yet in Hong Kong’s efforts to draw expertise and businesses back into the city.

It will also give preferential treatment to “top talent” – people who earn HK$2.5 million or more annually or graduates from the top 100 universities around the world with relevant working experience.

Mr Lee, in his first policy address since taking the top job in July, opened his speech touching on security, using similar language to that of Beijing when describing the city.

Referring to a speech Chinese President Xi Jinping made when he was in the territory to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover from British to Chinese rule, Mr Lee said it served as a blueprint for his own policy address. 

Hong Kong has in recent years seen some of the most tumultuous periods since returning to Chinese rule in 1997.

The city was rocked by pro-democracy protests in 2019 which at times turned violent, crippling the financial hub. Beijing eventually responded with a sweeping national security law that was passed in the Chinese Parliament.

“Having restored order from chaos, we must stay alert to threats and dangers, adopt bottom-line thinking, and sustain our efforts in safeguarding national sovereignty, security and development interests in order to guard vigilantly against the recurrence of threats,” Mr Lee said.

“Following our transition from chaos to order, Hong Kong is advancing from stability to prosperity with our constitutional order better safeguarded and our governance systems improved.”

The government will push forward to enact Article 23, he said, a national security law under Hong Kong’s mini Constitution, the Basic Law. It will also look to regulate crowdfunding and to craft rules governing “false information”.

The civil service will also undergo sweeping reforms, Mr Lee said, adding that the government will be more results-oriented, with more coordination across bureaus.

Mr Lee also pledged to help Hong Kongers get on the housing ladder earlier with more “decent” housing.

Home ownership is out of reach for many young people in the city because of sky-high property prices, and those applying for government-subsidised flats often face a years-long wait. Others on the lower end of the income spectrum sometimes end up renting tiny subdivided flats or “caged homes”, cramped tiny bed spaces that can be fire hazards.

About 158,000 new public housing units will be available in the next five years, a 50 per cent increase from the same period in the past five years, he said.

The government will also introduce new programmes to encourage developers to build subsidised housing. More land will be released for housing construction, especially brownfield sites – former industrial plots that need to be restored before they can be built on.

Hong Kong will also make adjustments to its healthcare system in a bid to relieve pressure on primary care providers, which include setting up a new Primary Healthcare Authority in 2024 to set and enforce standards. During the Delta wave of the coronavirus last winter, public hospitals were overwhelmed with the sheer number of patients, resulting in shocking images of sick people waiting on hospital beds out in the cold.

But, contrary to expectations, Mr Lee did not announce any rollbacks to pandemic control measures. In the three months since coming into power, his administration has toned down some of the harshest measures, including scrapping quarantine for international travellers. Hong Kong will continue working towards fully reopening with the mainland, he said, but not at the risk of putting additional Covid-19 risks on the mainland.

The city is working towards a “reverse quarantine”, in which those travelling from Hong Kong will first quarantine in the city before entering mainland China so that travel would be less disruptive.

“How much longer this anti-epidemic journey will take hinges on a basket of factors,” Mr Lee said, citing the global situation, the winter flu season and Hong Kong’s healthcare system capacity.

“Acting hastily will cause troubles, bringing irreversible risks to society and leading us nowhere.”