《香港出口暴漲 50.7%，我哋呢一代外貿人點跟》

[ZHENG GE REVIEW] Column: Hany Blog Review

"Hong Kong Exports Surge 50.7% — How Our Generation of Traders Keeps Up"

Hany Zheng Ge · September 22, 2026 · 2:00 PM

— Notes from a 70s-born foreign-trade veteran on the July 2026 export jump

This afternoon in the pantry, a junior colleague from a trading firm walked over and held up her phone: "Hany, look! Hong Kong's July merchandise exports rose 50.7% year-on-year."

I looked at the number — it was real:

July 2026 Hong Kong merchandise exports: +50.7% YoY.
AI-related electronic products posted particularly strong gains again.
Jan–Jul 2026 total merchandise exports: +40.9% YoY.
Census & Statistics Department: real GDP +5.1% YoY in H1 2026; +4.3% in Q2.

I took a sip of gongfu tea and thought back to 1998 — my first time walking into a Guangzhou trading company.

Back then, Hong Kong was the world's largest entrepôt; Kwai Chung was the busiest container port on earth; Shum Shui Po's electronics stalls shipped gear worldwide. Our generation of foreign-trade professionals was born walking that transshipment chain.

Twenty-eight years later, the chain's shape has totally changed — but the engine is still Hong Kong.

1. 1998 Hong Kong Exports: Knockoffs, Toys, Electronic Parts

When I started in 1998, what were we actually exporting?

Electronic components, transformers, plastic casings, radios, remote-control cars, Christmas lights, plastic flowers, toys, stationery, umbrellas, plus the just-booming VCD/DVD players and discs. Two years later the Nokia 8250 and Motorola V998 era began, and Shanzhai phones and grey-market gear took over.

Hong Kong at that time, as the super entrepôt between mainland China and Western markets, carried the top tier of throughput and financial settlement. Our Guangzhou office shipped nearly everything through Hong Kong, full L/C processing at HSBC.

Back then foreign trade ran on three documents: L/C, bill of lading, invoice.
Customers wanted fast, cheap, reliable. Hong Kong was the "reliable."

We young foreign-traders had a near-religious awe of Hong Kong back then.

Then came the 2008 financial crisis, 2010 mainland wage inflation, 2015 cross-border ecommerce — and Hong Kong's transshipment halo gradually dimmed. The 2019 social movement, 2020 pandemic, 2022 dollar rate hikes — a sequence of blows. Transshipment numbers plunged; containers piled up at Kwai Chung with no one to pick them up — that image many old traders still remember.

Over gongfu tea back then, our veteran crew used to ask: "Is Hong Kong still salvageable?"

None of us knew how to answer.

2. 2022-2024 Trough: Electronics Shrink into a Low-Margin Death Spiral

From 2022 to 2024, our circle saw two very painful years in electronics exports.

The causes were simple:

• Global smartphone shipments slowed; components entered price wars;
• Southeast Asia (Vietnam, India) took over part of the assembly outsourcing;
• Raw-material price volatility squeezed mainland factories into single-digit margins;
• US-China decoupling kept Hong Kong clients from placing orders;
• Hong Kong local consumption shrank, and logistics, office rents, and shop leases turned into negative assets.

In those two years I watched many post-80s small and mid-size trading companies close.
Those doing Nokia senior phones, USB fans, Bluetooth earbuds — almost wiped out.

Over tea, we'd ask another question: "Is electronics still Hong Kong's chassis?"

Again, no answer.

3. 2025-2026 Turning Point: AI Electronics Carry the Chain

From early 2025 onward, the AI wave began reversing its role inside Hong Kong's export mix.

AI servers, AI accelerator cards, HBM high-bandwidth memory, edge-AI modules, AI phones (Huawei's Mate XT 2 is one example), AI PCs, AI glasses — from January to July 2026, these new electronic products powered Hong Kong's electronic exports. Electronic products make up over 70% of total exports, with semiconductors and electronic components particularly strong.

Our Guangzhou office has been serving these clients since late 2024:

• European AI-server cooling modules — orders booked through Q1 2027;
• Southeast Asian AI-accelerator-card PCBs — every batch needs CE-RED and FCC;
• Middle Eastern edge AI boxes — for smart cities;
• North American AI-glasses ODM — full chain from structural to optical modules.

These clients are a different kind of business from the 2008-2018 phone clients.
Higher unit price, better margins, higher technical bar, complex certification, stable repeat orders.
Each order starts at USD 500K — that was unthinkable in the old days.

For us old-school electronics veterans, the most obvious shift is:

Customer mix has changed. From "price fighting" to "technology fighting." From "lead-time fighting" to "certification fighting." From "volume fighting" to "solution fighting."

That shift perfectly matches the HK Census conclusion — "AI-related electronic products posted particularly strong export gains again."

4. A Haifeng Person's Foreign-Trade Flavor: Gongfu Tea + AI

Speaking of which, our Haifeng elders' saying comes to mind — "Is the tea cold? Brew another pot."

As a kid, watching my father welcome guests at the old Haifeng house, he always brewed a pot of Phoenix Dancong first, exchanged pleasantries, then got down to business. When the guest left, he walked them to the door and said "come back for tea when you're free" — that was the Haifeng person's commitment to "follow-up business."

In 2026, doing AI-electronics foreign trade, the logic is the same:

The client's first order is a "probe."
The second order is "trust."
The third order plus bringing friends is "ecosystem."

The bottom-layer logic for foreign-trade veterans has not changed in 28 years.

What changed: where we used to drink tea and talk Nokia senior-phone plans, today we drink tea and talk HBM cooling plans.

The leaf switched to pu'er; the guest became a grey-haired AI engineer — but the rhythm stays: warming the cup, pouring the tea, skimming the foam, pouring out.

5. Three Notes for the 70s Generation

Note 1: Don't Take Price-War Orders

In the 2026 AI-electronics market, price wars are a low-margin death spiral. To keep up, take orders with technical barriers, certification moats, and customer stickiness. Shanzhai USB fans? By the time your kid takes over, Vietnam and Bangladesh will have eaten the lunch.

Note 2: Learn to Use AI Tools for Foreign Trade

AI is not here to take your job — it's here to amplify your 26 years of foreign-trade instinct. I use AI for quotes 10x faster, German technical-doc translation 20x faster, customs-term lists 100x faster. That time delta is the gap between a 70s veteran and a 90s newcomer — not being replaced, being amplified.

Note 3: Hold the Customer Network; Don't Retire at 60

Our generation's biggest asset is not capital — it's decades of customer network plus trust. At 60 we shouldn't step off the stage; we should use AI tools plus old foreign-trade chops to set the template for the "veteran pivot" — 70s-born + AI + 26 years' experience = a competitive combo no one in the world can take away.

6. One Line for Fellow Traders

Twenty-eight years of foreign trade — from Shanzhai phones to AI chips, from Kwai Chung to edge AI, from fax machines to AI-generated quotes — the chain keeps changing, but the human warmth on the chain doesn't.
Hong Kong's July +50.7% looks like a number on the surface, but underneath it's a signal that an entire generation of foreign-traders is standing back up.

Our generation of foreign-trade veterans isn't stepping off — we've just swapped the engine.

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