Hong Kong has for the second year in a row topped the rankings in financial services, trade and logistics, and culture, sports and tourism in the GBA Industry Development Index.

The index, jointly released on Tuesday by local think tank Our Hong Kong Foundation and a bank, was compiled after polling more than 3,400 firms in the Greater Bay Area and analysing thousands of data points.

The index also covers the innovation and technology, manufacturing, and construction and real estate sectors.

Alex Mak, the think tank's head of GBA Development, said there are comparative advantages across GBA cities, as the SAR only ranks first in some industries.

"[The] significance for the government or to every one of us is how to maintain our leadership," he said.

"In financial services, we can see initiatives in digital finance, in stablecoins, or in RWA – real-world asset tokenisation area. We can work harder on that. We have sandbox initiatives to facilitate the application of tokenisation technology."

The team behind the index said the opening of Kai Tak Sports Park last March will help boost the city's mega event economy.

It noted that more than 30 sporting events and concerts have been staged at the venue.

"The next step for us to think about is how we can convert those people [sports park visitors] into purchasing power," Mak said.

"So I think the National Games is a very good testing field for how can we convert those people who like to watch the Games into also visiting the neighbourhood, Hong Kong shops and retail premises, and also turn this into a package of both watching the Games and travelling."

With AI development playing a greater role for firms to boost efficiency and lower costs, the team also called on the government to step up AI applications by setting up public AI platforms, so as to allow data integration among certain sectors.

Tertiary institutions, for their part, could introduce more AI courses to help tackle the shortage in manpower, the team said.

It added that enterprises need to formulate codes of conduct to avoid data leaks.

Looking ahead, companies hold a generally optimistic outlook for the coming year, according to the index.

The trade and logistics sector has the most conservative sentiment, due to the ongoing trade war.