中國企業主導香港經濟的關鍵部分 (2/2)

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

Chinese Firms Are Dominating Key Parts of Hong Kong’s Economy (2/2)

(Bloomberg) Kiuyan Wong, Shirley Zhao and John Cheng

Sun, June 26, 2022, 2:00 PM

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Infrastructure

Hong Kong’s skyline is being increasingly defined by mainland companies, as those firms -– mainly state-owned construction behemoths -- grabbed more and bigger public infrastructure contracts. Last year, mainland firms won 48% of government infrastructure contracts worth more than HK$500 million ($64 million), up from just 8% in 2018, a Bloomberg News analysis of public tendering records found.

Their dominance was even more pronounced for the largest projects. For example, they took 68% of the HK$53 billion construction of the local part of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, including a 12-kilometer (7.46 mile) highway and building an artificial island off the city’s airport. All of Hong Kong’s makeshift hospitals and most of its quarantine facilities for Covid-19 control were also built by state-owned construction companies.

Chinese developers also aggressively snapped land in the middle of the last decade, although the buying spree has lost some of its steam in recent years amid pressure from Beijing to deleverage. One of the biggest buyers was HNA Group Co., which acquired several residential sites in the Kai Tak area in record-breaking deals, only to dispose of them due to debt issues.

On the construction side, state-owned firms such as China State Construction International Holdings Ltd. and China Communications Construction Co. expanded their market share in Hong Kong thanks to their massive capital. This allowed them to offer attractively low prices to the government on builds, said Derrick Pang, chief executive officer of Asia Allied Infrastructure Holdings Ltd., a local construction firm. Homegrown developers often need to rely on bank loans, making them less competitive. And losing past projects also means local companies now lack a good track record, putting them at even more of a disadvantage, Pang said.

“If we don’t have more Hong Kong companies rising to the top, what happens is they will gradually disappear,” Pang said. “Whether this happens in five years, 10 years or 20 years -- it’s just a matter of time. And it will be a similar story in other Hong Kong sectors, not just the construction industry.”

Mainland firms have also been buying up prime office space. In 2017, they occupied almost half of the Central business district’s office space, according to Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. But there has been a slide in demand in recent years, leaving large chunks of empty office space as foreign firms also cut back amid sky-high rents and the chilling effect of the city’s strict pandemic measures.

Retail

For decades, Hong Kong’s retail scene had been ruled by homegrown tycoons. The two dominant supermarket chains are owned by CK Hutchison, the flagship of billionaire Li Ka-shing’s empire, as well as Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd. Their growth has stagnated in recent years as groups backed by mainland Chinese capital are catching up.

Jardine’s Wellcome supermarket has grown just 2% since 2017 while CK Hutchison’s ParknShop has shrunk 17%. U Select, owned by China Resources, expanded 39%, according to data from Euromonitor International and Bloomberg News. Qiandama, a mainland grocery chain backed by JD.com Inc., entered Hong Kong in mid-2018 and has since opened 50 shops.

China Resources is also Hong Kong’s largest food distributor and sole importer of fresh pork, beef and poultry from the mainland. The city relies on the mainland for more than 90% of its fresh pork supply.

Beijing has been open about its desire to increase its influence in Hong Kong, especially after the unrest in 2019 strained its trust with the local tycoons. Mainland Chinese enterprises should provide for Hong Kong’s livelihood and promote its integration into the nation’s overall development, Yin Zonghua, deputy director of China’s liaison office in Hong Kong, said at an event in December 2021.

Still, there’s one crucial part of the city that is becoming less Chinese: the public.

A survey released last week showed only 29% of residents identified as broadly “Chinese,” down from above 40% just after the handover, according to a poll by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute. Some 70% identified as Hong Kongers, up from about 60% 25 years ago.

But the survey showed some good news for officials eager to tie Hong Kong closer to the mainland, the residents identifying as “Chinese” has rebounded from a low in 2020.

Translation

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基礎設施

香港的土地和建築物面貎的輪廓越來越被大陸公司所定調，因為這些公司 - 主要是國有建築巨頭 - 攫取了越來越多公共基礎設施的合同。彭博新聞對公開招標記錄的分析發現，去年大陸公司贏得了價值超過 5 億港元（6,400 萬美元）的政府基礎設施合同的 48%，高於 2018 年的只有 8%。

對於最大的項目，他們的主導地位更加明顯。例如，他們承擔了港珠澳大橋當地部分 530 億港元建設的 68%，其中包括一條 12 公里（7.46 英里）的高速公路和在該市機場附近建造一個人工島。香港所有的方艙醫院和大部分用於控制 Covid-19 的隔離設施也是由國有建築公司建造的。

中國開發商在過去十年中也大舉搶購土地，儘管近年來在北京施加壓力下出售資產以降低債務水平。購買熱潮已經失去了一些動力。最大的買家之一是海航集團，它以破紀錄的交易收購了啟德地區的幾處住宅用地，但由於債務問題而將其出售。

在建築方面，中國建築國際控股有限公司和中國交通建設股份有限公司等國有企業憑藉擁有巨額資金擴大了在香港的市場份額。當地建築公司 Asia Allied Infrastructure Holdings Ltd. 的首席執行官 Derrick Pang 表示，這使他們能夠向政府提供極具吸引力的低價格建設。本土開發商通常需要依賴銀行貸款，從而降低了競爭力。Pang說，本地公司失去過去的項目也意味著現在缺乏良好的業績記錄，使他們處於更大的劣勢。

Pang 說: “如果我們沒有更多的香港公司達到頂級位置，它們會逐漸消失”; “這是否會在五年、十年或二十年內發生 - 這只是時間問題。香港其他行業也會出現類似的情況，而不僅僅是建築業。”

內地公司也一直在購買優質寫字樓。根據仲量聯行的數據，在2017 年它們佔據了中環商業區近一半的辦公空間。但近年來需求有所下滑，隨著外國公司也在縮減, 以及高昂租金和該市嚴格的流行病措施的寒蟬效應, 導致大量空置辦公空間。

零售

幾十年來，香港的零售業一直由本土大亨主導。兩家占主導地位的連鎖超市分別由億萬富翁李嘉誠的帝國旗艦長江和記,以及怡和控股所擁有。近年來，隨著中國大陸資本支持的集團正在迎頭趕上，它們的增長停滯不前。

自 2017 年以來，Jardine 的 Wellcome 超市僅增長 2%，而 CK Hutchison 的 ParknShop 則縮水了 17%。根據 Euromonitor International 和彭博新聞的數據，華潤旗下的 U Select 股價上漲了 39%。由京東支持的大陸雜貨連鎖店钱大媽於2018年年中進入香港，至今已開設50家店鋪。

華潤亦是香港最大的食品分銷商和內地新鮮豬肉、牛肉和家禽的唯一進口商。該市90%以上的新鮮豬肉供應依賴內地。

北京一直公開表示希望增加其在香港的影響力，尤其是在 2019 年的騷亂令其對當地大亨的信任變得緊張之後。中國駐香港聯絡處副主任 Yin Zonghua 在 2021 年 12 月的一次活動中表示，中國內地企業應為香港提供民生服務，促進香港融入國家整體發展。

儘管如此，這座城市的一個關鍵部分正在變得越來越不中國化：普羅大眾。

根據香港民意研究所的一項民意調查，上週發布的一項調查顯示，只有 29% 的居民自已認定為廣義的“中國人”，而在主權移交後不久，這一比例是超過了 40%。約 70% 認定自已為香港人，高於 25 年前的大約 60%。

但調查顯示，對於渴望將香港與內地拉近的官員來說，有一些好消息，自已認為 “中國人” 的居民已從 2020 年的低點反彈。

So, 25 years after Hong Kong’s sovereignty changes hand to China, Beijing is not just calling the shots politically, but in vast section of the city’s $344 billion economy. Chinese state-controlled firms are increasingly dominating, taking market share away from the local tycoons and British trading houses that thrived under the British rule up to 1997.