HONG KONG: The Ministry of Commerce and the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) signed a memorandum of cooperation on promoting high-quality development of overseas economic and trade cooperation zones Wednesday at the sixth Belt and Road Summit.
Denis Yip Shing-fai, commissioner for Belt and Road of the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau of the HKSAR government, said the memorandum provides a solid policy foundation for promoting exchanges and cooperation between the mainland and Hong Kong in cooperation zones and helps Hong Kong businesses explore the Belt and Road market.
The signing of the memorandum will allow Hong Kong to use the overseas economic and trade cooperation zones as a platform to participate deeply in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and conduct exchanges and cooperation with other countries and regions.
With the spread of the novel coronavirus variant, the COVID-19 pandemic has been heating up again in many economies recently, adding uncertainty to the global economic outlook.
According to the latest statistics released by the Census and Statistics Department of the HKSAR government, the value of total goods export of the three-month period ending July 2021 decreased by 2.0 percent from the preceding three months on a seasonally adjusted basis.
The industry is concerned about the possible negative impact of logistics problems in the coming months, and experts also think the situation is not optimistic.
In June, the Belt and Road Office of the HKSAR government co-organized two webinars with the Commercial Office of the Economic Affairs Department of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in HKSAR, introducing to the Hong Kong business community five cooperation zones located in Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, respectively, Yip said.
The memorandum will help the mainland and Hong Kong draw on each other’s strengths, further advance cooperation among the mainland, Hong Kong and countries along the Belt and Road, and achieve common development for all.
In recent years, the mainland and Hong Kong have carried out fruitful cooperation in the construction of overseas economic and trade cooperation zones, and jointly building cooperation zones has become a consensus.
Danny Lau, honorary chairman of the Hong Kong Small and Medium Enterprises Association, said his company had deployed new production lines in Cambodia and Thailand in 2019, but they were shelved due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Setting up your own factories in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries is a bit like going it alone, and it is difficult for the local government to offer many preferential policies for an individual factory,” Lau said. “Hopefully, after the signing of the memorandum, it will be easier for Hong Kong enterprises.”
– The Daily Mail-China Daily News exchange item
