Commerce and Industry 125
The London Office promotes Hong Kong's economic and trade interests in the United Kingdom and 16 other countries in Europe. These include non-EU countries Switzerland, Norway and Russia, EU candidates Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania, and the 10 states that joined the EU on May 1, 2004. Hong Kong's representative to the International Maritime Organisation is also based in the London Office.
The offices in Sydney, Tokyo and Toronto are responsible for bilateral economic and trade relations in their host countries. The Sydney Office is also responsible for promoting Hong Kong's economic and trade interests in New Zealand. The Tokyo Office is also responsible for promoting Hong Kong's economic and trade interests in Korea. The Singapore Office is responsible for Hong Kong's commercial relations with the member states of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). It also serves as a direct point of contact with the Secretariats of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC), which are located in Singapore.
The Washington Office focuses on monitoring and liaising with the US Administration, Congress and think tanks on legislation and government policies that may have implications for Hong Kong's trade with the United States. The New York Office and the San Francisco Office are responsible for promoting economic and trade. relations between Hong Kong and individual US states and also seek to attract direct investment into Hong Kong.
The Guangdong Office is located in Guangzhou. Its main duties are to promote trade and economic relationships between Hong Kong and Guangdong Province, to provide better support services for Hong Kong businesses operating in Guangdong, especially the Pearl River Delta, and to provide free advisory service and assistance to enterprises in the province, which are looking for direct investment opportunities in Hong Kong.
External Commercial Relations
Hong Kong's Participation in the WTO
The HKSAR is a founding Member of the WTO. Its separate membership reflects Hong Kong's autonomy in the conduct of its external commercial relations, which is guaranteed under the Basic Law.
The WTO provides a fair, predictable and rules-based multilateral trading system for trade in goods, services and trade-related intellectual property rights. It promotes the liberalisation of international trade and serves as a forum for multilateral trade negotiations and dispute settlement among its members. Active participation in the WTO's multilateral trading system is the cornerstone of the HKSAR's external trade policy.
As a small and totally open economy, the HKSAR's participation in the WTO is guided by two objectives: first, to sustain the momentum of trade liberalisation, especially in areas of interest to the HKSAR, such as tariffs and services; and second, to strengthen and update the multilateral rule-based trading system so that it remains an effective framework to promote trade expansion and liberalisation, as well as to
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