66 The Economy
over the years. Hong Kong is an important fund raising centre for Mainland's state- owned enterprises and recently private enterprises.
Hong Kong aims to reap the enormous opportunities being accorded by rapid growth and further liberalisation in the Mainland economy, while making effective use of its international business perspective to meet the Mainland's development needs. Thus, it is essential to foster the inter-flows of people, goods, capital, information and services between the two places.
The signing of CEPA was a major milestone in improving the economic interface between Hong Kong and the Mainland. CEPA adopts a building block approach whereby more measures will be added as necessary. On trade in goods, the zero tariff concession on Hong Kong's domestic exports effective since January 1, 2004, has helped lift the competitiveness of Hong Kong's products in the Mainland market, as compared with products imported from other places. On trade in services, by giving Hong Kong companies a 'first mover' advantage in a large number of sectors, CEPA should facilitate expansion of Hong Kong's services across the boundary and open up more opportunities for business in the Mainland. Trade and investment facilitation will help promote and streamline trade, investment and other business flows between the two places.
The launch and progressive extension of the Individual Visit Scheme for Mainland residents coming to Hong Kong has added fuel to the already strong upturn in Mainland visitor inflow. In 2004, there were nearly 4.3 million Mainland visitors to Hong Kong under this scheme, accounting for only one-third of the growth in overall visitor arrivals from this source. This is rendering an important invigorating force to Hong Kong's inbound tourism.
Focusing on areas where Hong Kong has clear comparative advantages is the only way to compete with the rest of the world. Financial services; trading and logistics; tourism; and producer and professional services are the sectors that give Hong Kong this edge. They are not only the key drivers of Hong Kong's economic growth, they have also been providing the main impetus to job creation. In 2003, these key industries taken together contributed to 54.9 per cent of GDP and 44.3 per cent in terms of total employment.
Over the past year, a number of measures have been put in place to foster the development of these key industries. To develop Hong Kong as an international financial centre, measures were initiated to improve our regulatory regime and reinforce corporate governance of listed companies and professional standards of intermediaries. The securitisation of government toll tunnels and bridges has helped promote development of the bond market and generated one-off revenue for government coffers. To enhance Hong Kong's position as a regional logistics centre, airline services were progressively liberalised, and measures were implemented to reduce cross-boundary trucking costs in order to enhance the efficiency of our port services. The HKSAR Government has drawn up a concept plan on development of Lantau for public consultation with a view to strengthening Hong Kong's position as a regional transportation, logistics and tourism hub.