Chinese President Xi Jinping called on Hong Kong entrepreneurs to boost China’s development, in a letter the financial hub’s business community welcomed as a sign of encouragement.

“I hope you will continue to give full play to your strengths and actively integrate into the overall situation of national reform and opening up,” Xi wrote, according to a Thursday report by the official Xinhua News Agency. 

The Chinese leader was responding to a letter penned by several Hong Kong business figures descended from the mainland city of Ningbo, a major shipping and industrial city in the eastern province of Zhejiang. Xi served as the provincial party chief there from 2002 to 2007.

While Xi has called on Hong Kong to retain the “distinctive status and advantages” that separate it from mainland China, he has also tasked city officials with eliminating dissent against the ruling Communist Party. That crackdown has eroded freedoms and caused anxiety among foreign firms over the future of the rule of law in the hub.

Adrian Cheng, the chief executive officer of New World Development Co, said the message showed Xi’s “special care” for the city’s business sector, the Hong Kong Economic Journal reported.

The city’s leader John Lee thanked Xi for his response, calling it “deeply encouraging and inspiring”, and vowed to encourage local businesses to “better integrate into the overall development of the country”.

Hong Kong’s economy is under pressure from a grinding slowdown in China, the city’s main trading partner and source of tourism. The former British colony’s real estate sector has also been hit by high interest rates that drive up mortgage costs, with home prices falling to the lowest since 2016.

Xi last publicly responded to a letter from Hong Kong in 2023, when he replied to students from the Pui Kiu Middle School to encourage them to contribute to the city and the country.

The Ningbo group wrote to the Chinese leader to promote their contributions to Hong Kong’s economy and the country, according to the South China Morning Post.

  - Bloomberg