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Hong Kong enterprises have “high hopes” that a visit to Saudi Arabia as part of a high-powered delegation led by the city’s finance chief will help strengthen ties with the country and expand their business in the Middle East. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po will depart for Riyadh on Monday to attend the 9th Future Investment Initiative (FII) forum, often dubbed “Davos in the Desert”, to be held in the Saudi capital this week. One of the delegation’s members, Martin Zhu, CEO and co-founder of start-up i2Cool, told the Post that he was determined to use the summit, which runs from Monday to Thursday, to learn more about the country. “I hope to meet the Saudi Arabian authorities [with the help of the Hong Kong government] to see if there are chances for us to develop business there,” he said. Zhu’s company, set up at the Hong Kong Science Park, focuses mainly on electricity-free cooling technology for buildings through special paints, which he said suited Saudi Arabia. He revealed that his company had already expanded its business in other Middle East countries, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE). “As the UAE and Saudi Arabia are both countries with hot weather, I believe there are many opportunities over there [in Riyadh],” he said. But he said that his primary challenge was access to the market as he lacked connections with local authorities. He said he had joined the delegation specifically to attend FII as his trip with Hong Kong authorities to Jakarta in the first quarter of this year had yielded high-value connections. “I have high hopes for this trip that it can help us expand the business,” he said, adding that he expected Middle Eastern countries to become one of the firm’s main business contributors in the near future. The Saudi trip is part of the government’s push to deepen business and people-to-people ties with the Gulf state, building on momentum established at last year’s FII. The finance chief is scheduled to take part in an FII panel discussion titled “Board of Changemakers: Public-Private Powerbrokers?”. Other speakers from the city include Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing CEO Bonnie Chan Yiting and former chairwoman Laura Cha Shih May-lung. They will contribute to the global dialogue by speaking on competing visions for the world’s financial centres and the clash and convergence of public and private markets, respectively. The delegation will also have representatives from the innovation industry, including robotics start-up Galbot, another company operating at the Science Park. “We hope to communicate with investors from all over the world, which is our main purpose for joining the delegation team,” vice-president Jason Chen said. He added that his company had expanded its business in the UAE and the next step was to expand into Qatar and Saudi Arabia. He also expressed hopes that robots from the company could help solve labour problems in other countries. Last year, Chan led a 110-member Hong Kong delegation to the FII summit and witnessed the signing of at least two major deals in Riyadh. One of the landmark deals last year was a memorandum of understanding signed between Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) to jointly set up a new investment fund with a target size of US$1 billion. The HKMA said the new fund would promote foreign direct investment via Hong Kong, providing a platform for companies to internationalise their businesses and have access to attractive investment opportunities in Saudi Arabia. It was signed shortly after the announcement of a separate US$300 million fund established between the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation and Saudi Arabia’s start-up incubator, Beta Lab, signalling burgeoning cooperation in both finance and technology between the two regions. The bilateral exchanges between Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia began with a visit by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu to Riyadh in February 2023. Last year, Cathay Pacific Airways resumed its direct Hong Kong-Riyadh service, which it had halted in 2017.
