Three leading European pharmaceutical companies, along with 15 other non-local firms, have become the latest to agree to set up offices or expand in Hong Kong under a government push to attract strategic enterprises to the city.

Financial Secretary Paul Chan said the enterprises will help enrich the city's "fast-evolving innovation and technology ecosystem", as the 18 firms affirmed their plans at a signing ceremony with the Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises on Thursday.

"With today's addition, the number of strategic enterprises attracted to Hong Kong will surpass 100. Collectively, they are bringing in over HK$60 billion in investment and creating about 22,000 quality jobs," Chan said.

The finance chief said the Hetao cooperation zone, jointly developed by Hong Kong and Shenzhen, offers opportunities.

"This co-operation zone will serve as a testing ground for innovative policies, including the unimpeded flow of critical factors of production, including people, capital, goods, data and even bio samples," he said.

Among the latest batch of strategic enterprises are three multinational pharmaceutical companies: British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, Germany's Merck Group and Roche from Switzerland.

"We will continue to work with leading experts in Hong Kong, while many of our clinical trials are being conducted in Hong Kong," said Amy Ho, a general manager in Hong Kong for Roche.

"We hope to continue leveraging the expertise of Hong Kong's research and development professionals and medical teams to conduct more clinical trials here."

Among others on the list are mainland social media platform Xiaohongshu and Vobile Group from Silicon Valley that offers digital content asset protection.