By Vivian Au

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Hong Kong will not be “overgenerous” with taxpayers’ money to lure foreign investments and ventures to the city, even though there is competition with other jurisdictions for their contributions, the finance chief has said.
Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po’s remarks on Thursday came after the city’s leader delivered the penultimate policy address of this term of government the previous day, focusing on providing incentives to encourage enterprises to invest in Hong Kong.
The benefits to attract high-potential and high-value-added industries to the city included land grants, subsidies and tax discounts, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said in his policy blueprint.
Sources earlier said that the preferential policies included tailor-made benefit packages for businesses.
“In terms of incentives we offer, we do not need to be overgenerous,” Chan said.
“This is public money; I will be very careful.”
He added that the guiding principle was to ensure the city remained competitive and that it was important to understand who it was competing with.
This administration has invested a significant amount of effort in convincing foreign businesses to expand their operations locally while also helping mainland companies go global.

According to the authorities, as of July, the Companies Registry had listed more than 1.5 million local businesses and over 15,000 non-local firms, a record.
The government earlier revealed that InvestHK, the city’s investment promotion agency, had helped 1,333 companies establish or expand their operations in Hong Kong between January 2023 and July, bringing in HK$174 billion in direct investment within their first year of operation while creating more than 19,000 jobs.
Chan stressed that the city’s simple, low-tax regime provided a competitive advantage over others, adding that offering terms that matched those of rivals was sufficient.
He also noted that the city was able to offer a full range of funding options to companies at different development stages, which was an attractive feature of the set-up.
The Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises is expected to announce the fifth batch of firms establishing or expanding their operations in Hong Kong, which is expected to take the total to about 100 soon.
The office has already lured 84 leading companies in frontier technology since its establishment in 2022, and they are expected to generate about HK$50 billion in investment and create more than 20,000 jobs in the coming few years.
The authorities earlier also said that the Hong Kong Investment Corporation, a government arm established in 2022, had not only cultivated local start-ups and corporations but also invested in quality mainland and overseas firms as it enticed them to the city.
It had so far invested in more than 100 projects, with over 10 companies applying or preparing to file listing applications with stock market operator Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, the finance chief noted.