Yearender: Normalcy and new journey -- Hong Kong unties Gordian Knot in 2021

HONG KONG, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Stephen Choi has found it is the little everyday details of normalcy that are really impressive in 2021.

"While a lot of 2020 was unprecedented, the continuation of the COVID-19 challenges in 2021 required more strength to deal with -- it was impressive how most of us found our inner stamina," said Choi, a father of three and the co-founder of an early-stage start-up company in China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).

Choi, who is from the Republic of Korea (ROK) and has been residing in Hong Kong on and off for 10 years, said the COVID-19 fortress of Hong Kong provides protection so that he can live a normal life, as the global financial hub has had fewer COVID-19 cases throughout 2021 than most regions and countries registered in one day.

"While everyone is careful and prudent, I don't feel COVID-19 overwhelming my daily life," he said. "I don't fear the fellow commuters on the bus or MTR. Innocent coughs don't receive the suspicious glares. I can take my mask off in a restaurant for a meal."

Choi is the co-founder and CTO of a fintech start-up utilizing artificial intelligence to automate professional wealth management advice, trying to disrupt a mature industry in a daunting venture.

His team had diverse individuals that mirror the melting pot of Hong Kong: Hong Kong locals, people from the Chinese mainland, Britain and the United States -- where Cantonese, Mandarin, and English are all being used interchangeably.

"It's difficult to build such a diverse team elsewhere in Asia but Hong Kong itself has been extremely supportive," he said.

He spoke highly of the investment-promoting department of the HKSAR government InvestHK for its guidance for a company that "feels like a tribe settling a new frontier," while Cyberport, an innovative digital community with over 1,650 start-ups and technology companies in Hong Kong, has also been instrumental in introducing potential collaborations with local brokerages and other fintech firms in its ecosystem.

Before 2021, the co-founders of the company named AskLORA were spread out across Asia with most research and development in ROK. In 2021, they were able to gather in Hong Kong through the Cyberport Incubation Program and the support from InvestHK.

For the East-meets-West hub of over 7.3 million residents, building a fortress against COVID-19 in 2021 has not only allowed business leaders to link up onsite but also allowed students and teachers to meet again on campuses.

Lam Chun-hei, a committee member of the Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers (HKFEW), said one of the most encouraging things in 2021 is the resumption of full-time face-to-face classes in more schools thanks to wider COVID-19 inoculation.

Return to classrooms has allowed Hong Kong students to attend the class by taikonauts in China's new space station, which grabbed national headlines. Lam found the exchange very inspiring to Hong Kong's younger generation, which is increasingly interested in opportunities offered by the country's development.

As the students started new dreams, Hong Kong also started afresh in 2021, said Lam.

In 2019, rioters spread violence and hate in Hong Kong. In 2020, Hong Kong was hit hard by COVID-19. And this year saw Hong Kong return from chaos to order and head towards prosperity under the national security law and the improved electoral system in Hong Kong, he said.

The HKSAR's seventh-term Legislative Council (LegCo) election, postponed for over a year due to COVID-19, was successfully held on Dec. 19 after the electoral improvement, a happy coda to a year of cutting the Gordian Knot for the Hong Kong people.

Hong Kong's economy has been tested by the social unrest and the impact of the pandemic over the past two years. In 2020, the Hong Kong economy plummeted by 6.1 percent after shrinking 1.2 percent in 2019.

Hong Kong had also weathered four waves of COVID-19 cases by May 2021 and has aptly adjusted its anti epidemic strategy in light of new challenges of new variants such as Delta and Omicron.

Local health authorities have been decisive in beefing up the defense to keep community spread at bay and reported mostly an increase of imported cases since the fourth wave receded.

As the pandemic situation eases, economic indicators of the metropolis started to pick up in 2021. In the first three quarters of this year, Hong Kong's economy grew by 7 percent year on year, and the annual economic growth is expected to reach 6.4 percent for 2021.

The number of business operations in Hong Kong from overseas and the Chinese mainland, including start-ups, reached a record high in 2021, according to an HKSAR government survey.

To put 2021 in a nutshell, Choi chose the word "persistence."

"It describes not only our start-up but the world in general. COVID-19 has been agonizingly persistent throughout the year and people have been persistent in learning to adapt and deal with the situation," said Choi.

In 2022, his company has a long to-do list for take-off. As for his personal life, Choi hopes to relocate his entire family from the ROK to Hong Kong, to enjoy the spectaculars of the place: the amazing hiking trails, the mountains and the sea, and the Cantonese dim sum.