HKPC Releases “Standard Chartered Hong Kong SME Leading Business Index” Q2 2026 Overall Index Slightly Eased to 43.3 as SMEs Stayed Prudent amid External Economic Uncertainty Leverage AI to Alleviate Recruitment Challenges, Over Half of SMEs Value Candidates’ AI Skills

(Hong Kong, 23 April 2026) The Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC)today announced the “Standard Chartered Hong Kong SME Leading Business Index” (“Standard Chartered SME Index”) for the second quarter (Q2) of 2026. The survey results showed that the Overall Index edged down slightly by 0.6 to 43.3. It reflected that SMEs remained cautious about their overall business sentiment and continued to adjust their business strategies to cope with challenges, amid an uncertain external economic outlook.

“Standard Chartered SME Index” Survey Results
Among the five component sub-indices¹, “Global Economy” sub index recorded a significant drop, falling by 15.5 to 20.9, returning to a level close to Q3 2025. This reflected a marked deterioration in SMEs’ perceptions of the external economic environment. The largest declines were observed in the “Transportation, Storage and Courier Services” and “Social and Personal Services” industries, with respective drops of 24.8 and 22.5. This was followed by “Financing and Insurance”, “Import / Export Trade and Wholesale”, and “Manufacturing”, each recording declines of more than 15 points.

In contrast, the other four sub-indices remained relatively stable. “Investment Sentiment” (51.1, +1.4), “Business Condition” (40.6, +1.1), and “Profit Margin” (38.5, +1.9) all recorded modest improvements compared to the previous quarter, with “Investment Sentiment” returning above the 50 neutral line. Meanwhile, “Recruitment Sentiment” (50.5) continued to stay above the 50 neutral line.

Regarding the cost components, the proportion of SMEs anticipating an increase in raw material costs rose sharply by 21 percentage points to 67%. Conversely, the proportion of SMEs expecting staff salary increases declined by 1 percentage point to 20%. Notably, despite heightened expectations of raw material cost pressures, only 23% of SMEs planned to raise prices for their products or services, indicating that most SMEs were not yet prepared to fully pass rising costs on to customers.

Mr Tommy WU, Senior Economist, Greater China and North Asia, Standard Chartered, said, “The latest ‘Standard Chartered SME Index’ suggests SMEs have turned more downbeat due to the Middle East conflict. In particular, the oil price surge and expected economic repercussions from the conflict were likely behind the sharp fall in the ‘Global Economy’ sub-index (-15.5).

That said, SMEs sounded more confident about the recovery in Hong Kong and the resilience of Chinese Mainland’s economy, as evidenced by the rise in ‘Investment Sentiment’ (+1.4), while ‘Recruitment Sentiment’ was steady above 50, pointing to a stable labour market. Nevertheless, surveyed Hong Kong SMEs expect continued pressure on sales and profit margins, given elevated global uncertainty and Hong Kong’s ongoing economic restructuring. Both the ‘Business Condition’ and ‘Profit Margin’ sub-indices remained below 50 despite the minor improvement. Besides rising raw material costs, SMEs also expect ‘Staff Salary’ and ‘Rent’ pressures to weigh on profits.

Meanwhile, sentiment softened across industries due to the challenging global outlook, notably for ‘Transportation, Storage and Courier Services’ and ‘Import / Export Trade and Wholesale’. Sentiment in some industries softened less than others – ‘Financing and Insurance’ (+0.8) and ‘Professional and Business Services’ (+1.2) ticked up, though they stayed below 50. This uptick was likely driven by an expected strong IPO performance and prospects for Hong Kong businesses’ increased involvement in the ‘Go Global’ (or ‘Going Out’) initiative, which is aimed at helping Chinese Mainland businesses to expand overseas. In addition, an expected resilient Chinese Mainland economy supports the recovery in inbound tourism to Hong Kong, benefiting the ‘Retail’ (+1.6) industry.”

Thematic Survey Results: AI Literacy Emerging as a Workplace Priority
The thematic survey of this quarter explored the current situation of talent recruitment and talent requirements among Hong Kong SMEs. The survey revealed that, in addition to sales, customer service and administrative roles, some SMEs have begun recruiting talent in IT, digital and AI-related support, highlighting their growing emphasis on AI and digital applications in daily operations.

In terms of recruitment criteria, over half (51%) of SMEs seeking to fill staff vacancies indicated that they preferred job applicants who are capable of using AI, reflecting the rising importance of digital and AI competencies in hiring decisions. At the same time, SMEs continued to place strong emphasis on candidates’ ability to work independently, relevant experience, communication skills, work attitude and learning ability.

Among SMEs needing to fill up job vacancies due to resignation, more than 60% (63%) reported difficulties in staff recruitment, indicating that manpower shortages remain persistent. To cope with recruitment challenges, SMEs mainly relied on reorganising work allocation and workflows, strengthening internal training and talent development, and flexible use of outsourcing and flexible employment arrangements. Some SMEs also indicated plans to introduce AI and automation solutions to reduce reliance on manpower and enhance operation efficiency.

Ms Karen FUNG, Chief Marketing Officer of HKPC, said, “AI is creating new opportunities for society and the labour market. With the HKSAR Government actively promoting ‘AI Training for All’ to enhance AI awareness and application skills across sectors, HKPC fully supports the initiative by rolling out a broad spectrum of AI training programmes, its open AI platform, and the ‘AI Governance and Testing Service’. HKPC Academy will launch the ‘AI Training for All’ programme next month. Through professional courses and certifications, the programme will continue to cultivate AI talent, enhance AI application capabilities among enterprises and the public, and support businesses’ long-term development. These initiatives help enterprises deploy AI efficiently and in compliance, while easing manpower challenges. In addition, HKPC previously successfully held the ‘AI with HKPC’ Smart AI Solutions Showcase Series, featuring over 100 AI solutions. A new ‘AI with HKPC’ series is being launched, which will bring more cutting-edge AI technologies and practical case studies, helping Hong Kong seize opportunities in the AI era.”

The survey also showed that among SMEs with recruitment needs, 77% would consider hiring fresh graduates. In addition to the value of work attitude, communication skills and learning ability, SMEs also expected graduates to possess basic digital skills and the ability to apply AI tools to meet the demands of increasingly digitalised business operations.

Karenadded that as AI literacy becomes a significant workplace trend, HKPC Academy supports SMEs in adopting AI while underscoring the importance of human–AI synergy and soft skills. To this end, the Academy has developed a tiered AI training framework, offering courses from basic to advanced levels tailored to non-technical staff, technical professionals and management, thereby driving AI adoption and business transformation. Over the past two years, HKPC Academy has organised more than 600 AI training programmes, reaching 32,000 participants, fully demonstrating its significant achievements in promoting the popularisation of AI.

Conducted in March 2026, the Standard Chartered SME Index Q2 2026 survey successfully interviewed 825 local SMEs. The report will be available for download from HKPC website: https://u.hkpc.org/scbi-hk.

¹The five sub-indices include “Recruitment Sentiment”, “Investment Sentiment”, “Business Condition”, “Profit Margin” and “Global Economy”.

- Ends -

At the press conference of the Standard Chartered Hong Kong SME Leading Business Index Q2 2026, Ms Karen FUNG, Chief Marketing Officer of HKPC (left) and Mr Tommy WU, Senior Economist, Greater China and North Asia, Standard Chartered (right) announced that the Overall Index edged down slightly by 0.6 to 43.3 this quarter.