Finance
20 major companies to open or expand in Hong Kong this week: finance chief
“These key companies will help attract upstream, midstream and downstream companies in related sectors to cluster in Hong Kong, promoting the vibrant development of the entire innovation and technology ecosystem,” Chan said.
The news came as Chan promised Hong Kong would continue to develop as an international innovation and technology centre, on top of being a multinational supply chain management giant and trade finance hub.
“While traditional markets in Europe and the United States remain important for Hong Kong’s exports of goods, their share has significantly decreased,” he wrote.
Chan said the proportion of exports to the United States fell from 18.6 per cent of the total in 2003 to 6.5 per cent last year and exports to the European Union went down to 6.6 per cent from 10.5 per cent over the same period.
But exports to Asean countries over the time frame went up from 6.1 per cent to 7.9 per cent, which made the bloc Hong Kong’s second-largest export market after mainland China. The proportion of exports destined for the Middle East went up to 3.3 per cent.
Chan said geopolitical developments, global manufacturing adjustments, supply chain restructurings, and the emergence of nearby ports with excellent facilities had reshaped production and export patterns of businesses and affected Hong Kong’s export performance.
Hong Kong plans e-commerce festival ‘to boost city’s brands in mainland’
Hong Kong plans e-commerce festival ‘to boost city’s brands in mainland’
He explained that large manufacturers had adjusted their supply chains, but many medium-sized ones had yet to do so.
Chan added environmental, social and corporate governance, as well as high interest rates, had led to difficulties in trade finance, which had affected some businesses.
“Hong Kong has a solid foundation in trade and various related professional services, providing favourable conditions to capture the opportunities arising from these changes,” he said.
“The key lies in assisting companies in strengthening supply chain and value chain management, and creating higher value for their cross-border businesses through a focus on more efficient commercial and professional services.”
He said the city’s goal, laid out in February’s budget, was to establish itself as a one-stop shop able to offer services that included supply chain management, trade financing, consulting, talent development, and corporate training.
Chan added the city wanted to tap into the estimated 50,000-plus medium-sized manufacturers in the Greater Bay Area and the Yangtze River Delta, many of which would need to engage with overseas businesses as they expanded internationally.
Hong Kong finance chief says Beijing’s growth target ‘not easy, but achievable’
Hong Kong finance chief says Beijing’s growth target ‘not easy, but achievable’
Chan said Hong Kong’s advanced financial infrastructure could provide companies with a variety of funding options and highlighted that more than 70 of the world’s top 100 banks had operations in the city.
“Mainland enterprises settling in Hong Kong will have access to more efficient and lower-cost trade financing services,” he added.
Chan said the city would launch the first phase of the mBridge this year, which will allow cross-border transactions using central bank digital currencies and boost payment speed as well as reduce costs.
The multi-central bank digital currency platform is a cross-border payment and foreign exchange transaction scheme being developed by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority in collaboration with the central banks of the mainland, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates.
Gary Ng Cheuk-yan, a senior economist at corporate and investment bank Natixis, agreed Hong Kong had to adapt to new demands because of a “global supply chain reshuffle”.
“The city will not only need to connect mainland and Hong Kong firms to new markets, but will also have to attract trade and capital flows that could have bypassed the city,” he said.
“The core advantages of Hong Kong remain in free capital flows and low taxes, meaning it is easy for firms to manage trade and investment here.”
But Ng added the city should be prepared for geopolitical problems and stiff competition from other jurisdictions such as Singapore, which held a natural advantage in the Asean bloc of countries as a fellow member.
“Hong Kong will have a role to play, but it will not be as easy as in the past,” he said.
TORONTO — Insurance provider Intact Financial Corp. says it had higher catastrophe losses and large losses in the second quarter than it initially expected.
Intact Financial reported that its combined catastrophe and large losses were $247 million above its expectations for the second quarter on a pre-tax and net of reinsurance basis.
The combined higher losses amount to $1.08 per diluted common share after tax.
Total catastrophe losses reached $416 million on a pre-tax basis during the second quarter and net of reinsurance.
The company says catastrophe losses in Canada were due to weather events, while commercial fires drove losses in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Intact Financial says the increase in large losses included higher-frequency fire claims as well as other property losses across different geographies.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 8, 2026.
Companies in this story: (TSX: IFC)
The Canadian Press
For a company navigating one of the most consequential transformations in its history, financial clarity is not optional—it is essential. Natura &Co, the Brazilian personal care and cosmetics group behind iconic brands such as Natura and Avon, has long been committed to combining purpose-driven business with commercial performance. After a period of strategic portfolio reshaping, including the divestiture of its Aesop and The Body Shop holdings, the company is now sharpening its focus on profitability and operational excellence across Latin America and global markets.
At the center of that effort sits a deceptively complex challenge: understanding, in real time, which revenue and cost factors are driving or eroding gross margin across a highly diversified business. For years, answering that question meant manual reporting, delayed insights, and finance teams spending valuable time on data gathering rather than analysis.
That’s now changing, thanks to a co-innovation initiative developed together with SAP and Numen, a global SAP partner specializing in digital transformation and enterprise software implementation.
From manual reporting to proactive decision intelligence
The project’s goal was to replace a labor-intensive gross margin analysis process with a generative AI application embedded directly into Natura &Co’s financial workflows. Built on SAP Business AI Platform, SAP’s unified foundation integrating business technology, data, and AI capabilities, the application connects directly to data in SAP S/4HANA to provide finance teams with automated insights and narrative recommendations in real time, without the need for manual data pulls or offline reporting.
The application enables users to explore revenue, cost, and margin drivers interactively, identifying at a glance which elements are protecting or eroding margin performance across markets and product lines. Crucially, human oversight remains central to the design: the AI application generates insights, while finance professionals retain full control over interpretation and decisions.
“The implementation of gross margin analysis using AI in SAP S/4HANA marked an inflection point in the analytical capability of our finance area,” said Rogério Dias Garcia, tech manager, ERP Latam, Natura &Co. “We overcame delays and raised the standard of insights by integrating margin analysis from SAP S/4HANA with a large language model connected via the SAP AI Core layer. This architecture allowed us to provide, in an agile, secure, and completely anonymous manner, a stratified and precise view of gross margin offenders and protectors—discriminating exactly which revenue or cost elements were driving market performance.”
A collaborative architecture for scalable AI adoption
Natura &Co’s application derived from a prototype SAP partner Numen created in early 2024 at SAP’s global Hack2Build on business AI, leveraging the generative AI capabilities of SAP Business AI Platform. The solution was designed and developed through close collaboration between Natura &Co, Numen, and SAP. From the outset, the approach was to align AI adoption with concrete business priorities, ensuring the application would be scalable and production-ready rather than a standalone prototype.
Numen brought deep SAP implementation expertise to the project, combining knowledge of SAP S/4HANA architecture with hands-on experience in building solutions on SAP Business AI Platform. The technology stack—SAP S/4HANA, SAP AI Core, SAP Fiori, and SAP Business Technology Platform—provided the secure, integrated foundation needed to connect financial data with generative AI capabilities in an enterprise context.
“SAP enabled the transformation by providing the technological foundation and expert support,” said Carlos Aravechia, head of Data Design & Intelligence at Numen.
The success of the project has validated a broader conviction at Natura &Co: that generative AI, embedded directly in ERP workflows, can fundamentally reposition finance from a transactional function to a strategic business partner.
A blueprint for other businesses
The Natura &Co project demonstrates a pattern that other organizations can replicate, particularly those running SAP S/4HANA. The combination of structured ERP data with the contextual reasoning capabilities of large language models creates a foundation for decision intelligence that goes well beyond traditional business intelligence tools.
The project was built within a six-month co-innovation sprint and went live in August 2025. It is currently in use across Natura &Co’s Equador operations.
Looking ahead, Natura &Co is already planning the next phase: integrating Joule Agents to further automate the extraction of standard analytical content and deepen the AI-driven optimization of financial processes.
“The success of this initiative validates the transformative potential of embedded AI within our ERP,” Dias Garcia noted. “We are now ready to move forward—deepening these insights and integrating the capability of Joule Agents to maximize the extraction of standard content and further optimize our business decisions.”
For SAP customers evaluating how to move from AI experimentation to AI in production, the Natura &Co project offers a concrete, replicable model: start with a high-value, well-defined business process, embed AI directly into existing workflows, and build in human oversight from the start.
A girl from a disadvantaged rural family in central China topped this year’s gaokao, attracting numerous live-streamers eager to finance her education, which she declined.
The home of 18-year-old secondary school graduate Han Yaping in a Henan province village was recently bustling with live-streamers.
This attention came after Han achieved an impressive score of 699 out of 750 in the gaokao, China’s national college entrance exam.
She has received offers from China’s two leading universities, Tsinghua University and Peking University.
Han’s accomplishment is particularly remarkable given her family’s impoverished circumstances.
Her mother suffers from ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory arthritis affecting the spine, preventing her from working. Her father, who earns a living through farming and odd jobs, serves as the family’s sole provider. Han also has a younger sister.
-
Business5 minutes ago
Commentary: Trump wants to let companies make fewer disclosures, thus keeping investors in the dark
-
Entertainment12 minutes agoJustin Baldoni and wife break silence after ‘It Ends With Us’ legal battle with Blake Lively
-
Lifestyle14 minutes agoA meal with an animated Mona Lisa? Immersive dining goes high tech — but will L.A. eat it up?
-
Politics20 minutes agoNexstar launches its first digital subscription service with The Hill Insider, aimed at political junkies
-
Science27 minutes agoNot everyone is leaving California. A new commercial battery maker just landed in Sacramento
-
Sports30 minutes agoMookie Betts’ eighth-inning single gives Dodgers the win over the Rockies
-
World42 minutes ago
From sewers to swimming sites: how Europe's cities reclaim their rivers
-
News1 hour agoThree more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics
