(To watch the full media session with sign language interpretation, click here.)

Chief Executive John Lee announced that he will attend Hong Kong-Guangdong Cooperation Week activities in Guangzhou and Shenzhen tomorrow and this Friday respectively.

Mr Lee made the statement about the two separate same-day trips before fielding questions from the media ahead of this morning’s Executive Council meeting.

The aim of the week, organised by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, is to promote common strengths of Guangdong and Hong Kong in the development of various areas through organising different activities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area cities.

Mr Lee will attend the opening ceremony of the week and the SmartHK forum tomorrow morning in Guangzhou.

He will also take part in the opening ceremony of Chic Hong Kong, the week’s flagship event, this Friday afternoon in Shenzhen.

The Chief Executive sought to explain the goal behind the recent visits he has been making to other countries and the Mainland.

Apart from saying that such efforts promote Hong Kong, he stressed that since he has taken office and with the resumption of normal travel, he has been conducting visits to raise Hong Kong's attractiveness and competitiveness and develop business opportunities for the city.

 
While pointing out that he has received very positive responses concerning all the visits, he revealed that he and his colleagues will continue to carry out even more visits.

“Officials from the Government will be making visits to different places, to some countries in Europe, to some countries in the Middle East and some countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

“And of course, we will be happy making a lot of visits to different cities in the Mainland.”

Government officials will make use of all opportunities to develop the Hong Kong market for Hong Kong’s benefit, he added.