Speaking in a finance decarbonisation panel at Davos, he said, “Hong Kong is small, we may not be able to accommodate it, but we can co-invest across the border in China … to ensure the project is viable.”

Mo-po’s look overseas reflects Hong Kong’s limited land, feedstock, and renewable energy availability, as well as the absence of large-scale refining infrastructure.

The Financial Secretary added that Hong Kong, which is targeting carbon neutrality by 2050 with a 50% reduction from 2005 levels by 2035, wants to have more hydrogen on its roads.

“Whether this can be a business case, we don’t know, so we have given a subsidy to the bus company to buy hydrogen and test it.”

The Environment and Ecology Bureau said its hydrogen fuel working group had given eight projects agreements-in-principle, taking its total hydrogen energy trial project applications to 26 last year.

Two projects will look to deploy hydrogen trucks for “cross-boundary” transports, three are looking at hydrogen fuel cell coaches for passenger services, while the remaining three will use hydrogen to support electric vehicle charging.

Plans were unveiled last September to develop a SAF platform within Hong Kong and the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area. Cathay Pacific aims to use SAF in 10% of its flights from 2030.

Pure play renewable fuels producer EcoCeres is also planning a new SAF production facility in Malaysia in the coming months, with 420,000 tonnes per year of capacity. While the immediate focus is on Asia, there will also be an export dimension with key customers in Europe.