During his visit to Shanghai today, Chief Secretary Chan Kwok-ki met the city’s Vice Mayor Chen Jie and others to foster collaboration between Hong Kong and Shanghai at government, business and community levels.

In the morning, Mr Chan first met the Vice Mayor to discuss issues of mutual concern. The Chief Secretary pointed out that with the establishment of the Hong Kong/Shanghai Co-operation Conference mechanism for over 20 years, the exchanges and co-operation between the two places have resulted in fruitful achievements.

Following the Sixth Plenary Session of the Hong Kong/Shanghai Co-operation Conference in April, the government departments and relevant organisations of the two places have been furthering exchanges and co-operation in diverse fields such as commerce, finance, innovation and technology, culture and creativity, education, and youth development, to jointly develop new quality productive forces on both sides, he added.

Mr Chan said he hoped Hong Kong and Shanghai would continue to pursue deeper and higher-level exchanges and co-operation in more areas under the principles of complementarity and mutual benefits, with a view to making greater contributions to the country's high-quality development.

Afterwards, Mr Chan visited the Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office in Shanghai of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government and received a briefing on its work. He also chatted with Hong Kong students doing internships there.

Mr Chan was pleased to learn that since the full resumption of normal travel between Hong Kong and the Mainland last year, the trade office has been promoting Hong Kong at full steam. 

He encouraged its colleagues to continue leveraging various online and offline platforms to promote exchanges and co-operation between Hong Kong and the Eastern China region, tell good stories of Hong Kong to Mainland residents, as well as strengthening liaison with and support for Hong Kong people and businesses on the Mainland.

Mr Chan also attended a meet-and-greet session held by the Shanghai Hong Kong Association, where he met dozens of Hong Kong people and representatives of Hong Kong enterprises in Shanghai to learn more about their latest developments.

He also introduced to them the Hong Kong SAR Government’s latest policies on proactively trawling from around the world for talent and enterprises as well as improving district governance.

In the afternoon, Mr Chan attended the “Hello Hong Kong” event organised by Television Broadcasts and exchanged views with stakeholders of the cultural and creative industries in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Speaking at the event, he said the Hong Kong SAR Government has been steadfastly promoting the development of Hong Kong's cultural and creative industries and working with industry players to drive the city's development into an East-meets-West centre for international cultural exchanges.

The Hong Kong SAR Government has restructured Create Hong Kong into the Cultural & Creative Industries Development Agency to fully implement industry-oriented principles, and funded Hong Kong television stations to co-produce variety programmes with Mainland or Asian production teams via the CreateSmart Initiative, he added.  

Mr Chan also noted that the Hong Kong SAR Government will continue to further exchanges and co-operation between Hong Kong television stations and their partners from the Mainland as well as from around the world.

The Chief Secretary will return to Hong Kong tomorrow.