Prof Joe Ngai JP, Senior Partner and Chairman, Greater China, McKinsey & Company, Shares Strategic Insights on China’s Next Phase of Growth, Innovation and Global Expansion.
The Hong Kong Management Association (HKMA) successfully hosted an exclusive CEO Seminar, The Next China Is Still China: An Insider’s Playbook for Winning in the New Era, on Tuesday, 16 June 2026, at BMW Wanchai Showroom. The event marked the global launch of the latest book co-authored by Prof Joe Ngai JP, Senior Partner and Chairman, Greater China, McKinsey & Company, and Mr Nick Leung, Member of the McKinsey Global Board and former Chairman of Greater China, and attracted a full house of CEOs and senior executives.
The seminar, moderated by Prof Edward Chen GBS, CBE, JP, a renowned economist and HKMA
Fellow, explored China’s evolving business landscape amid geopolitical shifts and rapid technological change.
“China went from uninvestable to unavoidable. And the question is, what do we do about it?” Prof
Ngai remarked.
Unavoidable Scale: The Massive Mathematical Reality of China’s Future Growth
Addressing the scale of China’s future growth, Prof Ngai shared a striking comparison. “If China’s total real GDP grows by 2% per year for the next 10 years, the growth of China’s GDP is the entire GDP of India today,” he noted. “If China’s GDP grew by 5% a year, the growth in the next 10 years is the total GDP of India, ASEAN and Middle East added up together.”
The Toughest Corporate Gym: Surviving “Involution” and Demanding Efficiency
Prof Ngai described China as “the toughest corporate gym in the world”, where intense competition continues to drive companies to become more resilient, efficient and innovative. He highlighted the phenomenon of “involution” as a form of hyper-intense competition that is reshaping industries and accelerating innovation.
Despite the challenges this creates for businesses, Prof Ngai noted that such competitive intensity also reflects a strong entrepreneurial spirit and long-term confidence in future opportunities, driving companies to continuously invest, innovate and reinvent themselves.This survivalist environment ultimately benefits global consumers with incredibly high-value products.
The Global Push for Survival and China’s Shift to an Engineer Dividend
Prof Ngai noted that intense domestic competition is driving an accelerating wave of global expansion among Chinese enterprises. At the same time, China is transitioning from a traditional labour dividend to powerful “engineer” and “robot” dividends. With China’s population aged 65 and above projected to reach approximately 31% by 2050, he highlighted the country’s leadership in robotics and engineering talent as important drivers of future productivity and innovation.
Redefining Success Metrics and Managing the Critical Hurdle of Succession
Prof Ngai encouraged business leaders to reassess traditional measures of success. He cautioned that indicators such as Gross Merchandising Value (GMV) may not always reflect the quality of growth, noting that up to 30% to 40% of revenue in some modern corporate portfolios may generate little or no real value. Instead, he emphasized the importance of focusing on high-quality, sustainable and defensible growth.
Looking ahead, Prof Ngai also highlighted succession as a key challenge facing many Chinese private enterprises as the pioneering generation of entrepreneurs approaches retirement age.
The seminar concluded with an audience Q&A session on China’s future growth prospects, technological transformation and emerging business opportunities.
Please click here to download more event photos
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Issued by The Hong Kong Management Association on 16 June 2026.
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