ENG-2006 — Page 142

110 Commerce and Industry

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.

External Commercial Relations

Hong Kong's Participation in the World Trade Organisation

The HKSAR is a founding member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Its separate membership reflects Hong Kong's high degree of 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 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 open economy, 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 the multilateral rules-based trading system so that it remains an effective framework to promote trade expansion and liberalisation, as well as to protect the HKSAR against any arbitrary and discriminatory actions taken by its trading partners.

The HKSAR participates actively in the current round of multilateral trade negotiations launched at the WTO's Fourth Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001. Its priority in this round is to seek greater market access for its services sectors and industrial goods. To demonstrate its commitment as a constructive and responsible WTO member, HKSAR hosted the WTO Sixth Ministerial Conference in December 2005. The successful conclusion of the conference provided a launching pad for the multilateral trade negotiations to enter the final phase in 2006 by outlining concrete timelines and the intensified plurilateral sectoral mode of negotiations. However, negotiations gained no further progress as different positions of major players persisted. In July 2006, WTO members agreed to suspend the negotiations. During the suspension, HKSAR played an active role in pushing for the resumption of the talks. After quiet diplomacy for more than four months, negotiations on technical work were resumed in November 2006.

Regional Economic Cooperation

As an important services, financial and trading centre as well as an integral part of the Asia-Pacific economy, Hong Kong continued to play an active role in enhancing regional economic cooperation. In 2006, some 84 per cent of Hong Kong's external trade was conducted with the other 20 member economies of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). Hong Kong participates as a full and separate member in APEC