The round trip under BRI: How the Philippines and Hong Kong now grow off each other

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Philstar.com

September 8, 2026 | 11:41am

MANILA, Philippines — Every Filipino knows Jollibee. Fewer may know that the homegrown fast-food champion, now with a global network of outlets far beyond the Philippines, also owns a piece of Hong Kong's culinary heritage.

Its acquisition of Tim Ho Wan, the celebrated dim sum chain that made its name as one of the world's most affordable Michelin-starred eateries, means a Filipino enterprise now stewards a beloved Hong Kong brand and carries it to markets around the world. Further cementing this strategic tie, Jollibee recently announced plans to choose Hong Kong over the US to list its international unit, a strong testament to the city's status as a premier global financial hub.

Alongside the couple of dozen restaurants Jollibee runs across the city, it is a neat emblem of the real relationship between the Philippines and Hong Kong. It has never been a one-way trade relationship. It has always been a round trip: Filipino enterprise reaching through Hong Kong into the Greater Bay Area and beyond, and Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong enterprises venturing out to the Philippines and the wider ASEAN.

That circuit is now moving at an accelerated pace. Two-way merchandise trade between the Philippines and Hong Kong grew 12.9% to reach some US$15.7 billion in 2025, while services trade expanded nearly 20% to US$2.4 billion.

The Philippines now ranks as Hong Kong's 13th-largest trading partner globally and its fifth-largest within ASEAN, a partnership anchored by the ASEAN–Hong Kong, China Free Trade Agreement and Investment Agreement. Zoom out and the same current runs across the region: ASEAN has been Hong Kong's second-largest trading partner for sixteen straight years. What is changing is not only the strategic trajectory, but the pace of growth, and Hong Kong is deliberately re-engineering itself to carry more of it, both ways.

An established presence on the ground

Hong Kong's commitment to ASEAN is long-established and physical. The city runs a network of Economic and Trade Offices across the region, alongside Invest Hong Kong (InvestHK), the investment promotion agency of the HKSAR Government, with teams that reach into markets including the Philippines. That presence is two-directional.

Reaching outward, InvestHK connects Hong Kong start-ups and corporates with ASEAN's investors, tech leaders and fast-growing consumer markets. Reaching the other way, its day-to-day mandate is to guide Filipino companies into Hong Kong — connecting them to capital, sites, licensing and talent, and smoothing every step of setting up. One network, both directions: a sustained bridge sitting in the middle of the traffic rather than at either end of it.

What Hong Kong puts within reach

For a Filipino enterprise weighing that move, the first thing Hong Kong puts on the table is access to capital on a scale few places can match. The city is already Asia's largest hedge fund centre and the world's largest cross-border wealth management hub, expanding at a projected 9% a year, and it has just moved to widen its lead.

A landmark bill now before the legislature would exempt private equity, venture capital and other fund managers from tax on performance-linked income, and spare their managers salary tax on performance-linked bonuses, a move that would make Hong Kong the first city in the world to set out clear rules of this kind. For a Filipino champion eyeing an international raise, or a conglomerate building a regional treasury function, that concentration of capital is a deep, and accessible, pool to fund the next stage of growth.

That capital story is increasingly a family story, too. For the family-owned conglomerates that anchor so much of the Philippine economy, Hong Kong offers a purpose-built home for the family office — and it has just sweetened the terms. A landmark bill introduced in mid-2026 broadens the tax concessions for family investment vehicles managed by single family offices, widening the range of qualifying investments and giving families greater flexibility and tax certainty in how they steward wealth across generations — all backed by a dedicated FamilyOfficeHK team and a deep bench of wealth-management expertise, and all close to the heart of Asia's growth. 

A market at the doorstep

If capital is one thing a Filipino firm gains through Hong Kong, a market is the other, and this year Hong Kong built new structure to open it. InvestHK welcomed the launch of the ASEAN Chamber of Commerce (Hong Kong), founded expressly to drive two-way trade and investment between the Chinese Mainland and ASEAN. The Chamber’s very first act was telling: it took more than 100 delegates on a guided tour of the Northern Metropolis.

The Northern Metropolis is where the abstract becomes physical. Stretching across roughly a third of Hong Kong's land along the Shenzhen border, it is the "north engine" of a dual-engine economy — innovation and industry to the north, finance and professional services to the south.

For a Filipino enterprise that establishes there, it opens the door to an enormous customer base: R&D and new-industrialisation land, a cross-border innovation testbed with Shenzhen, and the Greater Bay Area's US$2-trillion economy and 88 million consumers only minutes away. And here the rules of entry are unusual: land is awarded less on the size of the bid than on the substance of the plan — what a company will build, how quickly, how much it will invest, how many jobs it will create. For a genuine builder, it is a foothold that cannot simply be bought.

Filipino ambition heading out

With capital and market both within reach through Hong Kong, the pay-off is what a Filipino firm can then do with them, and ASEAN brands are already proving the route. In the first half of 2026, the number of ASEAN companies InvestHK helped set up or expand in Hong Kong rose by nearly 30% year on year.

"For companies across the Philippines and ASEAN, Hong Kong is far more than a market in its own right — it is the platform that connects their capital, talent and ambition to the Greater Bay Area, the Chinese Mainland and the wider world," said Associate Director-General of Investment Promotion, Ms Loretta Lee. "What we increasingly see is two-way investment: Hong Kong's financial and professional strengths paired with the drive of ASEAN enterprises and the growth impetus of the Belt and Road Initiative. That synergy is what turns a regional presence into a global one."

Why the round trip matters now

That is why the Philippines is best understood not just as a destination but also as a corridor, one node in a network Hong Kong is actively widening under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

As a Belt and Road economy in its own right, the Philippines sits squarely within the framework Hong Kong was built to serve: the city is already home to around 1,400 Belt and Road companies and maintains a global network of offices spanning most of the economies along the route. What connects a Filipino firm to ASEAN through Hong Kong is the same infrastructure now reaching much further afield: in recent years Hong Kong has led high-level business missions to Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa, opening fresh channels and forging new partnerships along the way. Each mission extends the same promise — that a business anchored in Hong Kong is plugged into a genuinely global grid, not merely a regional one.

The next chapter comes home this September, when Hong Kong hosts the 11th Belt and Road Summit on 9–10 September 2026. It is the largest platform of its kind, gathering officials and business leaders from along the BRI route and beyond. Building on the ASEAN Pavilion that made its debut a year earlier, the Summit is where Filipino enterprises can hear the latest updates, meet project owners and investors, and test the newest opportunities first-hand.

Jollibee's move shows how a global business can be built by using the Philippines and Hong Kong together. What is new is that the same route now runs in both directions at once — Hong Kong reaching into the Philippines through its people and presence, and Filipino enterprise reaching out to the world through Hong Kong's capital, opportunities and expertise.

The companies that move early will set the terms for the rest. InvestHK stands ready as your on-the-ground partner, connecting you to the right capital, sites, licensing and talent, and smoothing every step of the way.

To find out more about how Hong Kong can meet your investment ambitions, contact the Head of Business and Talent Attraction / Investment Promotion at InvestHK, Mr Melvin Lee at [email protected].

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Editor’s Note: This press release is published by the Advertising Content Team that is independent from our Editorial Newsroom.

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