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'Hong Kong is regarded as the best city for business in the world, followed in descending ranking by New York, London, Atlanta, Chicago, Singapore, Toronto, San Francisco, Frankfurt and Miami;
Hong Kong is at the vortex of an economic boom that will transform not only China but all of Asia and, indeed, the entire global economy. It is the crowded entryway to the Asia-Pacific region, and offers unique access to China, the fastest- growing economy and biggest potential market in the world;
Hong Kong is an ideal base from which to manage businesses spread across Asia. It has arguably the most pro-business government in the region. It has low income tax rates. Most importantly, Hong Kong residents are well equipped to seize the many opportunities unfolding before them.""
Mr Clark added: "In fact, the closer we get to the transfer of sovereignty, the greater has been the rate of establishment of regional headquarters in Hong Kong. Clearly there are concerns in Hong Kong about our future the same can be said of many cities - but don't expect the lights all to go out in Hong Kong in 1997.
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He said Hong Kong had one very significant additional advantage: "We are geographically in the right place on the doorstep of potentially the world's biggest economy - China; an economy which is expanding incredibly rapidly; not only that, we sit in deep water at the mouth of one of the world's great river-trading systems.
"The economies of Hong Kong and China are already very much interwoven with Hong Kong being the port and service centre for industrial development across a major portion of southern China. The great majority of those industries are Hong Kong financed, Hong Kong owned and Hong Kong managed.
"Some four million people in neighbouring Guangdong Province alone are employed in businesses wholly or partly owned from Hong Kong. That's not going to change after 1997. Nor, is our geographic position."
As far as Hong Kong's port is concerned, Mr Clark continued: "We are making sure that we can face the future and maintain our place among the world's leading container ports and remain the hub port for southern China.
"Not because of any warm feelings we get from being the world's number one container port. You can't bank warm feelings. But you can bank the significant economic gain you get from handling cargo.