Continuing a visit to Beijing, Chief Executive John Lee attended the opening ceremony of the 29th Beijing-Hong Kong Economic Cooperation Symposium this morning.

This year's edition of the event is themed “Beijing-Hong Kong: Together into the 15th Five Year Plan”.

In a speech at the ceremony, Mr Lee remarked that the symposium has achieved fruitful results over nearly three decades, during which time co-operation between Beijing and Hong Kong has gradually expanded from trade, commerce and infrastructure to high-end areas such as financial services, innovation and technology, green and low-carbon development, intellectual property and professional services.

He added that by putting Hong Kong’s international resources at the service of Beijing’s high-quality development, and opening up channels for Beijing’s innovative industries to go global, the symposium has promoted two-way investment and joint development, and played an important role in deepening Beijing-Hong Kong collaboration.

Mr Lee said Beijing and Hong Kong can further deepen collaboration in three main directions in the future.

These include advancing two-way financial opening-up, where Hong Kong, as the most convenient international financing platform for Beijing enterprises, joins hands with Beijing to expand green finance and offshore renminbi business.

Another direction, he said, involves deepening collaboration in innovation and technology, accelerating the development of the Northern Metropolis and building an internationalised university town to promote the integrated development of education, technology and talent. It also entails a new chapter for Beijing and Hong Kong institutions in jointly nurturing high-calibre talent and fostering new quality productive forces.

Mr Lee also highlighted the direction of giving full play to Hong Kong’s roles as a “super connector” and a “super value-adder” to fully empower enterprises in "going global", thereby helping to bring Chinese culture and soft power to the world.

The Chief Executive said Hong Kong will continue to proactively serve the country’s needs and work with Beijing to transform co-operation between the two places into a new impetus of high-quality development, contributing to the country’s high-standard opening up.

Mr Lee later departed for Shanghai to attend a welcome dinner for the Ninth China International Import Expo (CIIE) and took the opportunity to exchange views with participants from all over the world.