Hong Kong ranked most international city in Asia, narrowly beating Singapore

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Hong Kong has been ranked as the most international city in Asia, narrowly beating out rival Singapore, in a new index released by a major business lobbying group.

But the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce also warned that the city must address glaring weaknesses in innovation and talent to secure its future amid rising geopolitical risks.

The inaugural “Asian Cities Internationality Index 2025”, released on Tuesday, ranked Hong Kong first with a score of 73.7, just two-tenths of a point ahead of Singapore at 73.5. Shanghai was the top-ranked mainland Chinese city, placing fifth with a score of 65.1.


The Swiss-based International Institute for Management Development recently ranked Hong Kong third globally in its annual World Competitiveness Index, placing the financial hub after Switzerland and Singapore.

According to the chamber, Hong Kong’s victory was powered by its lead in the “business and economy” segment. But it placed fourth in “innovation and ideas”, trailing Shanghai, Singapore and Seoul.

Chamber chief executive Patrick Yeung Wai-tim addressed the gap, saying that Hong Kong’s development had not yet reached the point where its scientific research could successfully be commercialised on a large scale.

“Hong Kong’s own enterprises still invest a relatively low proportion of their operational costs in scientific research and development,” Yeung said.

But with new support from the government, he expected an improvement, saying: “The momentum will slowly move in a positive direction … if we do the survey again, Hong Kong will have better achievements in those areas.”

To improve the city’s showing in the area of “innovation and ideas”, the chamber recommended providing “more investor-friendly policies to support commercialisation of local academic research”.

It also urged action to “foster a balanced and diverse talent pool and improve the deteriorating English proficiency of the working population,” after Singapore led the “human capital diversity” category.


The study was commissioned by the chamber and conducted in partnership with global market research firm Ipsos.



It assessed 11 Asian cities based on a framework of four core attributes: stability and scalability; global interconnectedness; richness and openness to resources and ideas; and value exchange and influence.

The final score was derived from 113 indicators across seven areas, with 60 per cent based on hard data and 40 per cent from a survey of 1,107 senior executives conducted across the 11 cities in January.

Chamber chairwoman Agnes Chan Sui-kuen also pointed to recent data from the IMD report showing a significant decline in Singapore’s business environment ranking from second to eighth place after the pandemic due to “very high operational costs”.

Regarding ongoing trade tensions, Yeung noted that businesses were better prepared this time than in 2018 when the Trump administration first applied tariffs to Chinese goods.

“As Hong Kong maintains its advantage as a free-trade port and duty-free port, we have many opportunities amid the tariff war,” Chan said. “Many people may want to see how the duty-free port can be used as a transit hub.”

When asked about rising tensions in the Middle East, Chan said the impact would be global rather than specific to Hong Kong.

“It will affect the whole world … if the situation in the Middle East is like this, oil prices will remain high, your inflation will remain high, and you cannot cut interest rates,” she said. “Everyone will be in a difficult position without a cut in interest rates. This is not a problem for a single country; it is a worldwide problem.”


Despite the challenges, Chan voiced confidence in the city’s trajectory.

“I believe our gap [with Singapore] will be even wider next year; we will surpass them by even more,” she said. “It is because we are really moving in the right direction in many aspects, and the government is doing many things [that] will show greater results.”


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