Hong Kong’s Super-connector Role Remains Highly Regarded

For the 2025 survey, respondents were once again asked to rate Hong Kong’s connectivity with other GBA cities and with the countries within the ASEAN bloc. This rating was on a scale of 1 to 10, with “1” representing ‘very weak connectivity’ and “10” representing ‘very strong connectivity’. The various factors were grouped into three categories for assessment purposes: business environment, financial infrastructure and cross‑border flow of resources.

In 2025, the score for the overall “connectivity with other GBA cities” was 7.93, lower than the 8.46 secured in 2024. Hong Kong’s overall “connectivity with ASEAN countries”, meanwhile, was rated 7.86, again a slight decrease from 2024’s 8.43. To a certain extent, this can be taken as a reflection of the uptick in global trade uncertainties, particularly the impact of the additional tariffs the US is imposing on the Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong which have affected overall business environment. Again, the scores from Hong Kong and the five Chinese Mainland GBA cities showed no significant variance.

Note: Respondents were asked to rate each aspect on a scale of 1-10, with “1” representing very weak and “10” representing very strong.
600 respondents in 2024 and 2025, 671 respondents in 2023.
Source: HKTDC Survey

GBA Enterprises’ ASEAN Operations Rely on a Broad Range of Hong Kong Services

It was generally acknowledged that Hong Kong can be highly effective when it comes to helping any GBA enterprise with its ASEAN expansion ambitions, largely thanks to its role as the region’s premier professional services hub to provide a wide variety of services. Of the services on offer from the city, the ones most commonly utilised by GBA companies are: business and investment consultancy advisory services (89%), legal/dispute resolution services (89%) and financial services/fundraising (e.g. IPO) (88%). Also highly valued by such businesses are Hong Kong’s sales and marketing services (79%), ESG-related services (e.g. green financing, green consultancy, green certification and carbon trading) (75%) and logistics and supply-chain management services (74%).

Note: The four options in this question are “often”, “sometimes”, “seldom” and “never”. The percentages in the diagrams are the combined percentages of “often” and “sometimes”.
Due to rounding, items with the same percentage may be ranked differently.
Number of respondents: 335 respondents who are operating businesses in ASEAN.
Source: HKTDC Survey 

1 For more details on the report, please refer to Hong Kong Empowers GBA Enterprises for ASEAN Growth Amid Global Trade Challenges