Hong Kong would be an ideal market-driven platform through which countries could join the Belt and Road Initiative, and could attract global resources to projects set up under the scheme, Hong Kong Trade Development Council Chairman Vincent Lo Hong-shui told a business forum.

HKTDC, the city's statutory trade-promotion body, was scheduled to bring a team of leading Hong Kong companies to visit Vietnam and Thailand soon to find specific projects that would produce returns, and to explore how these projects could be implemented, Lo revealed on Monday.

"I don't believe that all investments in the Belt and Road Initiative will be made solely by China; China can't afford it. Hong Kong should take the role of a market-driven platform that assembles global resources into this initiative," he said.

Lo was speaking in a panel at this year's Chinese General Chamber of Commerce (CGCC) Forum. At the forum, which has Regional Cooperation and Global Economic Outlook as its theme, business leaders from Hong Kong and Asian countries called for closer regional cooperation amid the uncertainties facing the world today.

They expressed concern over the risk of rising trade protectionism following United States President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw his country from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But they remain optimistic about Asia's future growth.

In his welcoming remarks, Jonathan Choi Koon-shum, chairman of CGCC and Sunwah Group, said Hong Kong business leaders were paying close attention to the impact of the uncertainties in the economic and political spheres in the past year.

Choi called for closer regional cooperation within Asia as the fast-growing regional economy had become an important driver for the world economy.

"Economies in the region have strengthened their bilateral and multilateral trade agreements to achieve specialized production according to their advantages and encourage trade activities in the region, which has helped immensely in developing the economy and improving quality of life in the region," Choi said.

Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and IndustryVice-President Charles Ho Nai-chuen attributed the success of Singapore to the country's role as a bridge for free trade in the region.

Singapore did not favor any country and welcomed businesses from anywhere in the world, which was why international companies set up headquarters in Singapore and started their operations in the region from there, Ho said.