A view of the Lujiazui area in Shanghai Photo: VCG

Shanghai and Hong Kong signed an action plan on Wednesday aimed at deepening coordination between the two global financial hubs by ramping up market connectivity and exploring new areas of collaboration, part of a broader effort to bolster their resilience amid growing global challenges, Shanghai-based media outlet the Paper.cn reported.

The agreement was signed on the same day as the opening of the 2025 Lujiazui Forum, an annual global event held in Shanghai since 2008. This latest step marks another major move forward in financial cooperation between the two cities since the launch of the stock connect program in 2014, a Chinese expert said.

The action plan maps out concrete cooperation priorities between the two financial hubs, including boosting market connectivity, enhancing cross-border financial innovation, and advancing green finance and fintech partnerships, moves that will inject new momentum into their multi-level, multi-faceted financial cooperation, per the report.
 
In his speech at the signing ceremony, Paul Chan Mo-po, financial secretary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), noted that the action plan serves China's national strategy of building a strong financial nation, carrying significant importance, according to a release from the HKSAR government's official website.
 
The action plan outlines 38 specific measures across six key areas, including enhancing infrastructure connectivity, jointly developing financial products and service systems, and strategic complementarity between the two hubs' offshore finance sectors.
 
Highlights of the plan include further optimizing mechanisms such as Bond Connect and Swap Connect, enhancing high-quality cross-border and offshore financial services to support Chinese enterprises going global and advancing high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, as well as accelerating efforts to position both cities as global hubs for yuan asset management. 
 
It also identifies new areas for collaboration, including cross-border clearing, connectivity in gold products and trading, new application scenarios for cross-border e-CNY (digital yuan) payments, and the expansion of reinsurance business by Shanghai-based financial institutions through Hong Kong, per the action plan.
  
The new move is poised to align Hong Kong's institutional and international strengths with the scale advantages of the Chinese mainland's real economy, Hu Qimu, a deputy secretary-general of the digital-real economies integration Forum 50, told the Global Times on Wednesday. 

"While the earlier stock connect program laid the groundwork for cross-border collaboration, the latest agreement is expected to deliver deeper and more comprehensive cooperation," Hu said.

Also, the two cities will jointly promote innovation in financial services, strengthen coordination in fintech, green finance, and digital finance, and enhance financial support for major strategic initiatives, key sectors, and weak links, in order to further improve the financial sector's ability to serve the real economy.
 
Under the action plan, the two sides will collaborate to expand the application of artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies in asset management, insurance, and settlement scenarios. They will also leverage financial policies to support innovation-driven enterprises.
 
With Shanghai rapidly emerging as a global hub for technological innovation, and Hong Kong working with Greater Bay Area cities to establish itself as a comprehensive international innovation and technology center, enhanced collaboration between the two cities will direct greater financial resources to fuel growth in key sectors, Chan noted.
 
"Amid global trade uncertainties, closer cooperation between the two cities will help further open up China's capital markets, facilitating deeper integration into global financial service systems," Hu said, noting that this will help China attract high-quality financial resources and strengthen its resilience against external risks.


Global Times