HONG KONG DEBRIEFED

The frenetic, constantly changing city on the South China coast still has more than a few tricks up its sleeve

- RICHARD LORD

Hong Kong’s post-pandemic bounceback might not have been wholly convincing, but the city continues to be what it’s long been – a hub in numerous ways, including for the MICE industry.

While Hong Kong’s economy hasn’t been doing brilliantly over the past few years, it hasn’t been doing disastrously either, particularly considering everything it’s had to deal with, from the pandemic to social unrest. Hong Kong’s GDP has yo-yoed up and down somewhat: according to official statistics, it rose by 3.2 per cent in 2023 after falling in 2022, rising in 2021 and falling in 2020. The government is predicting 2.5 to 3.5 per cent growth for 2024. Meanwhile, after the city’s population peaked at 7.5 million in 2019, then fell back to 7.4 million by the end of 2021, it has now climbed back to 7.5 million.

Inevitably, Hong Kong’s economy is closely tied into that of China as a whole, so it could feel some headwinds as the latter slows down after decades of breakneck expansion. Moreover, given the tense geopolitical state of the world, there is also the possibility that Hong Kong could catch some of the flak from any sanctions imposed by the United States. The National Security Law, meanwhile, introduced in 2020 and beefed up with the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance in 2024, introduced various limitations on what can and can’t be said publicly in the city.