Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre opens Beijing office

The Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC) officially opened its Beijing Representative Office on Dec 16, marking the first time an overseas arbitration institution has established a presence in Beijing.

Leveraging the capital city's policy advantages of the "two zones" initiative - the building of a national comprehensive demonstration zone for greater openness in the service sector and a pilot free trade zone - the new office will proactively integrate into the legal service cluster of the city's Chaoyang district. It aims to serve as a new platform for strengthening legal and arbitration exchanges between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland while fully leveraging Hong Kong's institutional advantages under the "one country, two systems" framework, contributing to the building of Beijing as an international commercial arbitration center.

The HKIAC is a world-renowned and leading international arbitration institution in the Asia-Pacific region. The establishment of the Beijing Representative Office marks a significant milestone in its development, highlighting Beijing's openness and inclusiveness in its pursuit of internationalization in arbitration.

In July 2022, the Commission for Overall Law-based Governance of the Communist Party of China Central Committee decided to start the pilot program of international commercial arbitration centers in the four provincial-level regions of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Hainan. Further emphasizing this goal, the State Council approved the "Demonstration Zone 2.0 Plan" in November 2023, which clarified Beijing's mission to build an international commercial arbitration center and proposed a series of supporting policies.

Over the past two years, the city has seen significant progress in reforming its arbitration system. The Beijing Arbitration Commission has made remarkable progress in its reform, with the internationalization and professionalization of arbitration institutions based in Beijing, such as the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission and the China Maritime Arbitration Commission, continuing to improve. The sense of community in Beijing's arbitration sector has been steadily consolidated.

In 2023, the three arbitration institutions in Beijing handled 18,583 cases valued at a total of nearly 279.21 billion yuan ($38.25 billion), indicating a year-on-year increase of 46.36 percent in the case number and 24.16 percent in the total value. Among them, 978 foreign-related cases involving a combined value of 59.29 billion yuan were concluded, accounting for 31.28 percent and 30.36 percent of the national totals, respectively.