Hong Kong serves as an ideal platform to help Uzbek enterprises expand through its world-class professional services and international business environment, the city’s leader has told the Central Asian country’s prime minister as he wrapped up a five-day regional tour.
Sources said Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu on Friday also invited Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov to be a keynote speaker at the coming Belt and Road Summit to be held in Hong Kong in September.
It was understood that during a meeting with the 70-strong delegation led by Lee, Aripov outlined dozens of collaborative projects with Hong Kong and assigned his ministers to follow up on them.
Several mainland Chinese and Hong Kong business representatives in the delegation expressed strong enthusiasm for the initiatives.
Among them was Peter Lee Ka-kit, co-chairman and managing director of Henderson Land Development, who noted that Hong Kong and China Gas Company, or Towngas, which he co-chairs, was highly interested in expanding its commercial operations in Uzbekistan.
During the meeting, John Lee acknowledged Uzbekistan’s active economic reforms in recent years.
He stressed that Hong Kong could help play a pivotal role as an international financial centre backed by a robust rule-of-law environment, a transparent regulatory regime, and an open market.
“Hong Kong can provide professional support for Uzbekistan’s economic development needs and serves as an ideal platform to assist Uzbek enterprises in expanding their business,” he said.
The city leader added that he looked forward to strengthening bilateral co-operation and building a solid foundation in areas such as capital markets connectivity, infrastructure financing and green finance.
On their final day in Tashkent, Lee and his delegation visited the IT Park Uzbekistan during which he met the country’s First Deputy Minister of Digital Technologies Ayubkhon Sultanov.
Lee said Hong Kong, with its world-class financing platform and professional services bridging mainland and international markets, was highly complementary to the development of Uzbekistan, which was expediting its economic transformation and innovation development.
During the visit, representatives of the city’s three leading innovation, technology and digital hubs – the Science and Technology Parks Corporation, Cyberport and the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park – signed separate partnership agreements with the IT Park to establish platforms for start-up incubation, acceleration programmes and cross-border market access.
“These platforms will provide Uzbekistan’s innovation and technology companies with a strategic gateway to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area and global markets, while enabling Hong Kong enterprises to leverage Uzbekistan’s young IT talent pool for software development and innovative collaborations,” Lee said.
The delegation led by Lee to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan included 40 Hong Kong representatives from the logistics, innovation and technology, banking and aviation sectors, as well as 30 mainland entrepreneurs.
Authorities and businesses signed 96 agreements with the two countries worth US$1.65 billion, which Lee said had set the stage for closer government and business ties with the region.
On connectivity, Hong Kong’s flag carrier Cathay Pacific Airways announced it would offer flights to Almaty in Kazakhstan next year, while the city also initiated a deal with Uzbekistan that paved the way for airlines on both sides to launch a new direct route.
The Airport Authority Hong Kong said on Friday that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Fly Khiva Group, an Uzbekistan-based airline group currently operating passenger services across Central Asia, Europe and the Middle East and cargo services with global reach, agreeing to step up cooperation.