Hong Kong as a Business hub

Located on the southern coast of the country, Hong Kong enjoys a fortuitous geographic advantage and is a world city leveraging on the Mainland while engaging the world. Hong Kong is well connected to Asia's key markets, making it an ideal location for businesses to tap into the multitude of opportunities in the Mainland and Asia-Pacific region. Being the most international city in the Greater Bay Area, Hong Kong has a business-friendly environment, good tradition of the rule of law, free economic system, and well-established information technology infrastructure and financial system, as well as a wealth of high-end talents and professional services with extensive knowledge on global markets.

Competitive Economy

Hong Kong has repeatedly been recognised as one of the world’s most competitive economies. The International Institute for Management Development (IMD) World Competitive Yearbook 2021 ranked Hong Kong 7th out of 64 economies.

The ranking reflects the consistent strides Hong Kong has made in building a favourable business environment. IMD assessed the economy across four competitiveness factors; economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure. Among various sub-factors, Hong Kong is ranked top globally in “Business legislation”. Hong Kong's rankings in "International trade", "Tax policy", "Finance" and "Management practices" also remained in the top-three positions globally.

International Rankings

Hong Kong...

• was ranked by Canada's Fraser Institute the freest economy amongst 162 economies in the world in its Economic Freedom of the World: 2022 Annual Report.
• ranked third in the World Economic Forum's 2019 Global Competitiveness Report, up four places.
• ranked the third easiest place to do business by the World Bank's Doing Business 2020 Report, up one place from the year before.
• was recognised by the International Institute for Management Development World Competitiveness Yearbook 2022 as the fifth most competitive economy in the world.
• ranked the sixth largest trading entity in the world in 2021, according to the World Trade Organization.

Intellectual Property Protection

The Government of Hong Kong SAR has specific policies and legal protection in place for intellectual property rights. The city’s intellectual property laws have been developed to reach the highest international standards to create a free and fair business environment.

OASES - Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises

With the aim of attracting high potential strategic enterprises from around the globe, numerous government initiatives supporting this cause have been developed. In the October 2022 policy adress, the Chief Executive announced that OASES would be established.

OASES will:

(i) draw up a list of target enterprises and provide steer to the Dedicated Teams for Attracting Businesses and Talents to reach out to and carry out negotiations with the enterprises;
(ii) formulate attractive special facilitation measures covering aspects such as land, tax and financing that are applicable exclusively to target enterprises, and provide them with tailor-made plans to facilitate the setting up of their operations in Hong Kong;
(iii) provide the employees of these target enterprises with one-stop facilitation services in areas such as visa application and education arrangements for their children.