Financial Secretary Paul Chan attended the Future Investment Initiative Summit on Tuesday during his trip to Saudi Arabia, and spoke at key thematic discussion sessions and held meetings with senior government officials and business leaders in the region.

Chan spoke at a session to share insights on how public-private partnerships can foster economic and social development, energy transition and the advancement of technological sectors.

He shared Hong Kong's experience with the Build-Operate-Transfer model and the "Rail-plus-Property" model, which have incentivised private sector participation in infrastructure development.

The financial secretary said the Northern Metropolis project will also adopt such kind of models to accelerate planning, construction and industry development.

"We take a multi-pronged approach, attracting strategic enterprises, doing co-investment with them, more flexible doing land grants, and we have a company owned by the government, the function of which is patient capital, we call it Hong Kong investment company," Chan said.

"We also use this company to work with fund management companies, to set up different funds – strategic development funds and innovation and technology development funds – so that we use this company as a lever to leverage private capital to sectors we want to develop."

The minister also delivered a keynote speech at a business seminar, promoting Hong Kong is an ideal gateway for Middle East businesses to access the mainland market, given the SAR's free economy status and advantages enjoyed under One Country, Two Systems.

Chan said there is vast room for collaboration between China and the Middle East, and invited more enterprises and institutions in the region to leverage Hong Kong's platform to open a new chapter in cooperation between Asia and the Middle East.