A rare scenario where Hong Kong's GDP growth rate outpaces that of Guangdong.

Who could have imagined that the Hong Kong economy has witnessed a stunning turnaround!

The latest data shows that in the first half of 2026, the real GDP of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region grew by 5.1% year on year, marking its strongest half-year performance in nearly five years. The growth rate hit 5.9% in the first quarter, even surpassing that of Shenzhen at the time, and reached 4.3% in the second quarter, which is also a remarkable figure.

This figure is also very impressive when viewed across the whole country.

In the same period, the growth rate of Guangdong Province was 4.5%, and that of mainland China was 4.7%. In other words, in the first half of this year, the GDP growth rate of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has rarely exceeded that of Guangdong Province, and also outpaced that of mainland China.

The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is advancing in lockstep, showing increasingly promising development prospects.

Of course, there are great differences in economic aggregate and industrial structure between Hong Kong, Guangdong Province and mainland China, so simple comparison of GDP growth rates does not make much sense.

What is really worth paying attention to is: Why is Hong Kong growing so rapidly all of a sudden?

01

The Influence of Artificial Intelligence

Let's first look at a very striking statistic: in the second quarter of this year, the real year-on-year growth of Hong Kong's goods exports reached 28.9%. After recording a 23.8% growth in the first quarter, the growth further accelerated in the second quarter, and one of the biggest driving forces behind this is exactly artificial intelligence.

Many people may find it strange that Hong Kong has no NVIDIA, nor is it a chip manufacturing base, so what does the AI boom have to do with Hong Kong?

The connection is actually extremely close. Although Hong Kong does not produce many hard technology products, it is a vital global hub for electronic product trade and re-export. A large number of chips, server components and electronic products from mainland China are connected to the global market through Hong Kong.

The economic advisor of the Hong Kong SAR Government revealed a very key statistic: Around one third of the integrated circuit exports from mainland China are transshipped via Hong Kong.

More notably, AI-related products already account for about 70% of Hong Kong's merchandise export trade. In the first quarter of this year, the export value of related products increased by 41.5%, and in the second quarter, the figure further soared to 63.7%.

No one expected that Hong Kong would become one of the big winners in this round of global AI wave. Hong Kong does not need to manufacture GPUs on its own. As long as global AI investment continues to grow vigorously, and chips, servers and electronic components circulate faster around the world, Hong Kong can gain profits from the entire industrial chain covering trade, logistics, transportation, insurance, financing, supply chain services and more. This is the value of an international trade hub.

Other analyses hold the view that the strong growth of Hong Kong's AI trade is attributed to a key factor: the robust industrial support from Guangdong Province. As one of the largest provinces for AI hardware production and procurement in China, Guangdong has directly or indirectly fueled the explosive growth of Hong Kong's AI trade. The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is reaping the dividends of highly integrated development.

02

The Second Engine — Finance, Has Also Been Fully Revved Up

If AI trade is the biggest surprise for Hong Kong's economy this year, then finance is Hong Kong's most familiar long-established business.

Since the beginning of this year, Hong Kong's capital market has rebounded markedly, trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has remained active, and the IPO market has heated up rapidly. In the first half of the year, the average daily turnover of the Hong Kong stock market reached about HK$ 283 billion, up around 17.8% year on year. A total of about 87 companies went public, nearly twice the number in the same period last year; the IPO fundraising amount reached about HK$ 210.2 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of about 92%, with technology companies becoming the main players.

In other words, Hong Kong is not only "transporting goods" for the AI industrial chain, but also "raising capital" for technology companies. Once the financial industry booms, it will drive far more than just Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, but also a long list of related sectors: investment banks, securities firms, funds, wealth management, law firms, accounting firms, consulting agencies, insurance and so on.

Therefore, a remarkable combination has emerged in Hong Kong's economy this year: on the one hand, it facilitates business operations for the global technology industry, and on the other hand, it helps Chinese technology enterprises raise funds.

Hong Kong's 5.1% growth rate this year looks unprecedented, but its underlying logic is very "Hong Kong-style".

Because the two engines that really drive economic growth, namely trade and finance, are exactly the most traditional and advantageous industries that Hong Kong is best at.

For many years in the past, we have been discussing a question: after the industrial upgrading of the mainland, the rise of Shanghai and Shenzhen, and the intensifying competition from Singapore, how much unique value does Hong Kong still retain?

The data of this year may have given an answer. The greatest value of Hong Kong has never lied in how many products it produces on its own, but in how many resources it can connect.

Chinese manufacturing needs Hong Kong to connect to the global market; Chinese technology enterprises need Hong Kong to access international capital; international capital entering mainland China still needs Hong Kong; and more and more mainland enterprises going global also need Hong Kong.

Therefore, Hong Kong's real core competitiveness may never have changed: the Super Connector.

The AI era is coming. Hong Kong is not a chip manufacturer, but when chips, capital and orders start to flow at high speed around the world, the party responsible for connecting all parties can still reap huge profits. This is perhaps the most noteworthy value behind Hong Kong's 5.1% GDP growth in the first half of the year.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "City War", author: Ting Haimoyu, published with authorization from 36Kr.