The 2024 Guangzhou-Hong Kong Financial Cooperation Promotion and the Tianhe Industry-Financing Matching Session of the 10th Guangzhou Annual Investment Conference recently took place in Hong Kong.

The event aimed to extend the international influence of the financial center of Guangzhou – capital of South China's Guangdong province – through Hong Kong.

It attracted the participation of more than 50 representatives from the governmental departments, industrial associations and leading related enterprises in Guangzhou and Hong Kong.

It's estimated that Tianhe, as the strongest economic district of Guangzhou, accounts for half of financial added value of the city. As such, it is a leading financial center in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, said Deng Ping, the district's deputy head.

Highrise buildings tower across Tianhe. [Photo/WeChat account: gztzth]

Deng added that the district has built some key platforms, including the Guangzhou International Financial City, the Greater Bay Area (Tianhe) Financial Management Service Center and the Guangzhou Futures Exchange.

These were accelerating the attraction of leading financial institutions and are contributing to the building up of Guangzhou as a financially strong city, Deng added.

Zhu Bin, deputy chief executive of Bank of Communications (Hong Kong), said at the event that the bank was focused on developing green finance, as well as offering customers financial services like green bonds and loans for green and sustainable development.

In 2023, the bank's total volumes of green deposit transactions and loans for green and sustainable development both increased by more than 60 percent, greatly supporting the green transformation of enterprises, Zhu noted. He added that it would further help promote the integrated development of Guangzhou and Hong Kong, contributing to the construction of the Greater Bay Area.

Currently, 10 Hong Kong banking institutions have 33 for-profit branches set up in Guangzhou, with total assets of nearly 130 billion yuan ($18.2 billion).

What's more, a total of 73 Guangzhou enterprises have been listed on the stock market in Hong Kong, with a total market value of more than 730 billion yuan – accounting for 30 percent of the total number of listed companies in Guangzhou.