A Beijing commerce official on Wednesday pledged further support for Hong Kong under the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA), the city's free-trade deal with the mainland.

Fan Shijie, the director-general of the Commerce Ministry's Department of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau Affairs, told a forum that the central government is committed to backing the city's economic development.

"We will, under the CEPA framework, continue to promote opening up and cooperation with Hong Kong, and support Hong Kong to better integrate into national development," Fan said.

"We will support different departments in implementing preferential measures under CEPA, and will continue to strengthen opening up and cooperation under the agreement to support investors in Hong Kong and around the world to enter the mainland via Hong Kong."

An agreement signed last year between the two sides to amend the framework on trade in services under CEPA will come into effect next month. Changes include removing or loosening restrictions on equity shareholding and business scope across the border.

Maggie Wong, Hong Kong's permanent secretary for commerce and economic development, said the changes are beneficial to sectors such as financial services, telecommunications, and tourism.

"The SAR government will make the trade make good use of a number of preferential measures, and will continue to seek to jointly promote a higher level of opening up and closer economic and trade cooperation with the mainland on the basis of CEPA, so as to maximise the space of development for the trade on the mainland," Wong said.

The administration must take measures to defend free trade amid challenges posed by unilateralism and protectionism, the official added.