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The Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said she would promote Hong Kong’s interests by making Hong Kong and Shenzhen a dual-engine for the growth in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. A telephone survey was conducted from 16 to 23 November 2020 by the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), to gauge the public views on the economic cooperation between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. It was found that the respondents thought that Shenzhen could not surpass Hong Kong. 50.7% of the respondents believed that Hong Kong and Shenzhen were more likely to compete. 66.8% of the respondents believed that Shenzhen has a quite small chance of replacing Hong Kong as an international financial centre (48.4%) and no chance at all (18.4%).

Major findings are summarised as follows

When the respondents were asked for their assessment of the possibility of Shenzhen replacing Hong Kong as an international financial centre, 48.4% and 18.4% answered “quite small possibility” and “absolutely no possibility”. 19.2% and 5.6% answered “quite high possibility” and “very high possibility”. Concerning the comparison of the competitive power, 42.0% of the respondents disagreed that the competitive power of Shenzhen had exceeded that of Hong Kong, while 25.9% agreed, and 27.5% said “half-and-half”.

The respondents were also asked for their assessments of the relationship between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. 50.7% of the respondents believed that Hong Kong and Shenzhen were more likely to compete, while 31.3% thought that they were more likely to cooperate. The respondents had little consensus on whether Hong Kong should enhance its cooperation with Shenzhen. 31.7% of the respondents did not support enhancing cooperation between the two cities, while 28.3% supported doing so, and 29.5% said “half-and-half”. Regarding the impact of the cooperation between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, 57.0% of the respondents believed that the cooperation was slightly helpful (47.3%) or not at all helpful (9.7%) for the long-term development of Hong Kong. 30.2% believed that it was quite helpful (22.5%) or very helpful (7.7%).

The Chief Executive Carrie Lam suggested that Hong Kong should cooperate with Shenzhen in many different aspects. The respondents were asked for their assessments of the potential benefits for the two cities that may arise from cooperating in six selected aspects. About 25% to 40% of the respondents believed that Hong Kong and Shenzhen would get the same level of benefits from cooperating in a particular aspect. The proportion of the respondents who believed that Shenzhen would benefit more is generally higher than that of those who believed that Hong Kong would earn more benefits.

In the aspect of commerce and trade, the proportion of “the level of benefits between the two cities would be equal” was 38.8%, higher than that of“Shenzhen would benefit more” (36.9%), whereas 10.3% of the respondents answered “Hong Kong would benefit more”. In the other five aspects, most respondents felt that Shenzhen would benefit more than Hong Kong, followed by the two cities getting equal benefits, and the least believed that Hong Kong would benefit more than Shenzhen. In the aspect of health care, the percentages of Shenzhen benefiting more, the two cities benefiting equally, and Hong Kong benefiting more were 52.9%, 33.1% and 5.9% respectively. In the aspect of the cultural and creative industry, the percentages were 41.5%, 30.3% and 14.2% respectively. In the aspect of manufacturing, the percentages were 40.9%, 29.1% and 14.0% respectively. In the aspect of the innovation and technology industry, the percentages were 38.5%, 27.6% and 21.0% respectively. The proportion of“Hong Kong would benefit more” in the innovation and technology domain was higher than that in other five aspects. In the aspect of higher education, the percentages were 54.6%, 26.3% and 7.6% respectively.

A total of 15.8% and 14.8% of the respondents answered that they would live and work in Shenzhen if such an opportunity arose, while 70.8% and 71.0% said they would not.

The survey employed a dual-frame sampling design that included both landline and mobile phone numbers. A total of 703 respondents aged 18 or above (landline: 358; mobile: 345) were successfully interviewed, with response rates of 34.6% (landline) and 36.1% (mobile). The sampling error is estimated at plus or minus 3.70 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.