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Important role of HK as trade and services centre stressed
The Chief Secretary, Mrs Anson Chan, said on Friday (Dallas time) the factors that have helped create Hong Kong's success would not disappear after 1997.
Speaking at the business luncheon organised by the Hong Kong Economic and trade Office and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), Mrs Chan said Hong Kong wsas the pre-eminent gateway to China and increasingly a centre for trade and services within the region.
"We are the most important bridge between the West and China, not only in commerce but in many other ways too.
"China naturally turns to Hong Kong for expertise. 600 Chinese delegations visit Hong Kong every year for such purposes.
"Bit by bit, Hong Kong is helping to bring standards in China up to those of the rest of the world," she said.
Mrs Chan said Hong Kong was increasingly a centre for trade and services within the region.
"In the past decade, our trade with other Asian countries has grown by almost 600 per cent in value terms, so that it now accounts for 64 per cent of our total trade," she said.
She said as at June 1, 782 companies had established their regional headquarters in Hong Kong, 87 of them since 1994.
Mrs Chan said the factors that underpinned Hong Kong's success would continue to operate in the years ahead.
These include Hong Kong's geographical location, which is on China's doorstep and mid-way between Tokyo and Singapore; its hardworking, flexible and well- educated work-force; a simple and low tax system; an efficient transport and communication infrastructure; and a predictable legal and judicial system.
In addition, she said, Hong Kong's resilience and "can-do" attitude, had enabled us to overcome so many apparently crippling political and economic problems in the past.