At the plenary session of the Lujiazui Forum held recently, Fu Fan, Chairman of China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co., Ltd., delivered an important speech on Shanghai-Hong Kong financial coordination and development. He pointed out that the current international situation is complex and volatile, and the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz triggered by the escalation of the Middle East conflict at the end of February this year has caused a severe impact on the global shipping industry and marine insurance market. Against this backdrop, China's insurance industry urgently needs to enhance its global service capabilities, improve risk protection and diversification mechanisms, and Shanghai-Hong Kong insurance coordination is precisely the key leverage point.
Fu Fan believes that Chinese enterprises going global are showing new trends: market layout is becoming more diversified, industries are upgrading to high-end, intelligent, and green, and the model has expanded from engineering contracting to overseas R&D, production, and regional headquarters establishment. The insurance industries in Shanghai and Hong Kong can leverage synergistic advantages to help enterprises cope with new and complex risks. Specifically, first, deepen the construction of overseas insurance service networks and capabilities, using Hong Kong as a hub, relying on its talent advantages and global insurance service experience, enhance global policy supply capabilities to meet the comprehensive insurance needs of enterprises in multiple countries and scenarios, while integrating into Hong Kong's professional service platform to provide localized cross-border services; second, create a complementary pattern of an offshore reinsurance hub and an onshore center. Shanghai is accelerating the construction of an onshore reinsurance center, while Hong Kong serves as an offshore reinsurance hub. Promoting the integrated development of the two places helps form independent risk pricing capabilities and enhances the risk resilience of Chinese enterprises; third, build new risk transfer and diversification mechanisms. Chinese-funded insurance institutions have issued multiple bonds in Hong Kong. Shanghai can learn from this experience to extend new risk transfer tools to scenarios such as technological innovation and major infrastructure, and rely on Hong Kong's international investor network to open up cross-border risk diversification channels.
In terms of optimizing global financial resource allocation, Fu Fan mentioned that Hong Kong is the preferred choice for international capital to allocate to China. In 2025, the net capital inflow and asset management scale of funds registered in Hong Kong have grown significantly. Meanwhile, domestic long-end interest rates are declining, and insurance funds need to broaden allocation boundaries. He suggested using the institutional advantages of the two places to explore global asset allocation of insurance funds. China's insurance utilization balance exceeds 39 trillion yuan. By deploying in the Hong Kong market through channels such as the Stock Connect, a diversified allocation of global high-quality assets can be achieved, hedging short-term capital fluctuations. At the same time, innovate capital operation methods to enhance the international competitiveness of financial institutions, such as introducing overseas strategic investors to optimize capital structure, learning from advanced experience. Taking China Pacific Insurance as an example, its listing in Hong Kong, issuance and listing of global depositary receipts in London, and issuance of zero-coupon H-share convertible bonds at a premium in Hong Kong have improved the transparency of corporate governance and internationalization level. In the future, more domestic institutions can rely on the Hong Kong market to improve capital supplementation mechanisms.
Fu Fan also emphasized that artificial intelligence is accelerating the transformation of the financial sector. Shanghai and Hong Kong are actively promoting the digital AI application of financial institutions and improving the digital financial governance system, which is expected to achieve breakthroughs in two directions. First, reasonably promote cross-border data flow to solidify the underlying support for cross-border finance. The "Shanghai-Hong Kong Memorandum of Cooperation on Digitalization of Freight Trade and Finance" signed in March this year uses blockchain technology for electronic bills of lading and trade finance, exploring the connectivity of shipping, trade, and financial data domestically and internationally. In April, Shanghai expanded the implementation scope of the data negative list to promote cross-border data flow for reinsurance and international shipping, constructing a compliant, safe, and efficient cross-border data circulation path. Second, jointly promote the "AI +" action to achieve an organic integration of application breadth and depth. Shanghai relies on industrial scenarios to promote large-scale application of AI technology, while Hong Kong focuses on cutting-edge research, leveraging its international financial hub advantages to explore AI applications in financial regulation, compliance risk control, and other fields. The two places should leverage their comparative advantages, deepen technical interoperability and scenario co-construction, and create a global benchmark for fintech collaborative innovation.
