From Oct 21 to 25, Leung Chun-ying, vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), led a team of Hong Kong-based members and non-Communist Party of China (CPC) members of the CPPCC National Committee to Southwest China's Yunnan province on an inspection trip to deepen Yunnan-Hong Kong cooperation and improve Belt and Road cooperation.

The team visited enterprises, industrial parks, and specialty agricultural products base in the cities of Kunming and Baoshan, gaining insights into Yunnan's development in traditional Chinese medicine, plateau agriculture, and the new energy industry. They also had discussions with officials from relevant departments of Yunnan, and offered advice and suggestions.

The team stressed the need to thoroughly understand the significance of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation and the guiding principles of the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, which sent a clear signal on China's higher-level opening-up and charted the direction for higher-quality Belt and Road cooperation. 

The team called for further advancement of Yunnan-Hong Kong cooperation to support China's high-level opening-up. Efforts are needed to strengthen strategic alignment to explore a cooperation mechanism that can maximize their respective advantages, the team noted. This includes integrating Yunnan's role as a Belt and Road gateway with Hong Kong's status as a "super-connector", and combining Yunnan's resources and geographic advantages with Hong Kong's service sector strengths, in a bid to foster Belt and Road development, deepen cooperation in various fields, and help enterprises from the Chinese mainland go global, according to the team.

Hong Kong should maximize its positioning as an international hub for finance, shipping and trade, and actively integrate into the country's overall development, the team concluded.