China and Hong Kong: beneath the headlines

Jun 15, 2026
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Christoffer Enemaerke
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RBC Emerging Markets Equity team

A recent trip to China and Hong Kong revealed a region undergoing significant transformation. From Guangzhou's impressive connectivity infrastructure to Shanghai's experience-driven retail evolution, our journey highlighted China's strategic focus on regional integration and technological advancement. Hong Kong's post-pandemic revival was equally striking, with property prices rebounding and the city's characteristic vibrancy returning.

Key takeaways:

  • Regional integration strengthens: China’s Greater Bay Area – a strategic initiative co-ordinating regional economic development – illustrates the country’s connectivity ambitions. We passed through Guangzhou's South Railway Station, which handled 21.8 million passengers during this year’s spring festival1.
  • Experience-driven consumption: a focus on ‘leisure’ means that shopping malls and retailers are restructuring around experiential offerings. During our trip, we were told that travel demand is now nearly 80% leisure led, and this is clearly where future opportunities lie for regional operators.
  • Quality companies provide opportunities: well-managed companies are prioritising shareholder returns and generating sustainable growth. China is becoming a market where high-quality companies are increasingly emerging, which reinforces our view that bottom-up research can uncover compelling opportunities.
  • Humanoid robotics advances: Chinese manufacturers now control over 50% of the global ‘cobot’ (collaborative robots) market, with companies leveraging expertise in robotic arms and brain computer interfaces to develop high-value humanoid robot components.
  • Hong Kong rebounds: property prices have recovered since bottoming in 2025, and transaction volumes are surging year-on-year. It is clear that Hong Kong has bounced back after years of stringent pandemic restrictions that hollowed out expatriate communities.

Read our full piece here


1 Finance.sina.com.cn, as at 17 March 2026.

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