# Hong Kong GDP as a % of mainland China GDP

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2019-11-03

china, economics, financial-capital, financial-center, gdp, global-city, handover, hong-kong, hong-kong-protest, investopedia, singapore

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I was talking about this with my friend [Evgeny Tchebotarev](https://twitter.com/tchebotarev) last night:

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/b581998552695870179babae8e56321a.png)

The transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong (also known as [the handover](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handover_of_Hong_Kong)) happened at midnight on July 1, 1997. At the time, Hong Kong had a population of about 6.5 million people and China had a population of about 1.23 billion people. But Hong Kong punched well above its weight class and its GDP as a percentage of mainland China's GDP was about 18.4% (see above). In other words, Hong Kong represented about 0.53% of the population, but almost 1/5 of China's economic output. Today, well as of 2018, this number has declined to 2.7% (again, see above). Hong Kong still possesses a number of structural benefits compared to mainland China, but its position as a global financial center is not guaranteed.

_Graph:_ [_Investopedia_](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/121814/hong-kong-vs-china-understand-differences.asp)

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/hong-kong-gdp-as-a-percent-of-mainland-china-gdp)*