Executive Council convenor Regina Ip on Tuesday said that Hong Kong is well-positioned to promote global collaboration and contribute to world prosperity, as the city kicked off its first-ever conference with a focus on geopolitics.

Speaking at the inaugural “Global Prosperity Summit 2024”, Ip warned that Hong Kong faces a “high degree of global geopolitical risks” due to the looming threats of “rising polarisation and political violence”.

She said these threats were challenging global governance, and have led to protectionist policies of tariff hikes, financial sanctions and export controls to “deny developing countries’ access to advanced technology”.

“The world is being factored into opposing geopolitical blocks, the free trade and investment environment over the past decades, which have helped hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, seems to belong to a bygone era,” Ip said.

“With national elections in 64 countries, affecting 49 percent of the world’s population, taking place this year, politics seems to trump economics everywhere,” she added, noting that signs of polarisation and political violence were also on the rise.

Ip said Hong Kong has a keen interest in promoting ways to resolve such issues, as it is a small but open economy that has a high degree of exposure to global risks.

“We are a very international and cosmopolitan society, and we are very well-connected. We understand the cultures and political systems of mainland China as well as the culture and systems of the West, so we are well positioned, really, to maximise our role as a super connector and an intermediary between mainland China and the rest of the world,” she told reporters.

Separately, Ip told RTHK’s Hong Kong Today programme the SAR is a very suitable place to host the prosperity summit given its reputation as a meeting point between East and West.

“This summit showcases Hong Kong as a platform for international dialogue and communication, because we are able to bring together experts, prominent scholars, former senior officials from all over the world to debate on the issues,” she told RTHK.

“When we have a free trade investment environment, everybody benefits, and we don’t want this to stop,” she added.

The three-day summit event is sponsored by local businesses and the government and is co-hosted by the think tank Savantas Policy Institute which Ip chairs, covering topics such as de-globalisation, technological cooperation and climate change.