In the Media

Prof. Zhiwu Chen, Chair Professor of Finance at HKU Business School, commented that, “At the end of the day the reality is that the private business sector in China is only of value when the Chinese Government needs some growth or needs to stabilize the economy".

Hong Kong, historically a vital trade hub, faces challenges from the development of cargo ports in Asia, the rise of cross-border e-commerce, and disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical tensions. Increasing number of companies are adopting strategies like "China+N" to diversify production networks and mitigate risks. As China and neighbouring nations drive industrial development in Asia, Prof. Heiwai Tang, Associate Dean of HKU Business School and Director of the Asia Global Institute, explains that Hong Kong must redefine its strategic position and focus on becoming a gateway between China and emerging economies, identify segments where it has a competitive advantage in regional supply chains, and adapt to geopolitical tensions by capitalising on new globalisation trends.

Fixated on finding an ideal partner? You may be missing out on your true match! HKU Business School’s Assistant Professor of Marketing, Ivy Dang, recently studied how people approach online dating platforms. She found that holding onto rigid ideals of the ‘perfect partner’ (i.e., Mr./Ms. Best) can end up overlooking genuinely compatible matches (i.e., Mr./Ms. Right).

As competition in artificial intelligence (AI) development between the US and China heats up, DeepSeek R1 recently emerged as a serious contender. Challenging OpenAI with DeepSeek’s innovative algorithms and open-source strategy, the Chinese counterpart offers OpenAI’s GPT-4 performance at just 5% of the cost.

Startups are often drivers of innovation, job creation, and economic growth. As Hong Kong undergoes a reinvention of its innovation and technology development, there is a need to frame Hong Kong's startup ecosystem development from a qualitative firm-level microeconomic perspective. In chapter 5, Alberto Moel examines how the ecosystem structure relates to startup lifecycles and finds that the ecosystem is weakest at the intermediate "Valley of Death" stages – precisely where startups need the most support. Because technology entrepreneurship in Hong Kong remains poorly understood, existing research often develops in isolation from industry needs, making it difficult to tease out a product and market. Moreover, interactions and integration between business schools and early-stage R&D efforts are weak, and the current accelerator and incubator programs usually fail to provide tools for long-term growth.

随着科技和网络发展，拼车服务势必向自动化及智能化方向迈进。笔者透过研究不同定价模式和匹配机制，为网约车平台建议提升拼车盈利的策略。

Hong Kong is facing with a persistent fiscal deficit, with projections suggesting a staggering shortfall of HK$94.8 billion for the 2024–25 fiscal year. Financial reserves are expected to drop to HK$639.8 billion, largely due to a sluggish real estate market that has significantly reduced land sale revenues. Meanwhile, public spending continues to rise, particularly in healthcare, social welfare, and civil service salaries. To address these challenges, the government has turned to silver and green bonds as a solution for managing the funding issue and the deficit.

Besides retirement, another ongoing concern of Hong Kong people is the city’s housing affordability. For fourteen years in a row since 2010, Hong Kong has been ranked the least affordable housing market in the world. In chapter 4, Michael Wong, Jimmy Ho and Yulin Hong measure the distributional effects of Hong Kong's housing affordability crisis by decomposing population, price, and construction data. The study shows that large-scale public housing insulated a large fraction of households from rapidly rising private-sector housing costs between 2006 and 2016. However, as private-sector costs rose, public housing became increasingly misallocated, and the population of private renters dramatically increased. The prices and rents of smaller private-sector units disproportionately increased. The result was a significant increase in the price of small units, as well as a disproportionate burden borne by young renters, who increasingly lacked the ability to move up Hong Kong's housing ladder. The continuing lack of affordable housing is highly detrimental to Hong Kong's economy, which hampers the city’s ability to attract talent and investment.