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HK Remains EU's Important Trade Partner: Envoy
Hong Kong is, and will continue to be, the European Union's (EU) important trade partner in the coming decade, said Ting David, the new envoy of the EU in Hong Kong.
Ting, head of the Office of EU's European Commission in Hong Kong, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview on the eve of the third anniversary of Hong Kong's return to its motherland that he believed Hong Kong occupies an important place in EU's external trade relations.
The total trade between EU and Hong Kong in 1999 soured to 26. 257 billion euro (US$ 24.68 billion), accounting for two percent of EU's total trade. The EU's imports from Hong Kong last year rose to 10.616 billion euro (US$ 10 billion), representing 1.4 percent of its total, while the exports to Hong Kong surged to 15.64 billion euro (US$ 14.86 billion), 2. 1 percent of the total EU export, according to Ting.
Hong Kong is also an ideal place for EU companies, Ting said, adding that as of June 1,1999, 253 EU companies were using Hong Kong as their regional headquarters while 471 had regional offices.
Commenting on Hong Kong's business environment over the past three years, Ting said he "has noticed the commitment taken by the Chinese government to keep the business environment free as it was before the handover."
Brushing aside suspicions about Hong Kong's future position as an entrepot for Sino-EU trade, the envoy said he is quite optimistic about Hong Kong's future after China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO).
"From the perspective of a westerner, we do agree that China's accession to the WTO will be very beneficial to the economy of Hong Kong," he said.
Ting believed the Hong Kong economy is mature enough to adapt to the new situation, though there are fears that Hong Kong might lose its role as a gateway from western countries to China.
"The Hong Kong people and the economy, in general, are very quick to adapt to the new situation for the last decade, so I am sure that Hong Kong will find a way to adapt once more, and adjust once more its economy and its role with the Chinese mainland," he said.
Since 85 percent of Hong Kong's GDP is made up of services, it can play a leading place as a gateway in introducing more foreign service companies to the mainland," Ting said.
In the traditional trade of goods, a lot of small and medium- sized overseas companies that want to do business in the mainland also tend to turn to the help of Hong Kong companies as middle-men. Ting took up his current post in Hong Kong in April. He said he has two ambitious plans in his term to improve the relationship between EU and Hong Kong.
One is the Asia Link Program, which is designed to promote exchanges of students between EU and Asian countries. It is hopefully to be adopted by the year end and implemented the next year, he said.
His office and the local environmental departments will also join hands to launch a project to strengthen the cooperation in environmental protection, which has already drawn deep concerns from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, Ting said.
Ting, a 56 year-old French diplomat with Chinese origin, said he had lived in Hong Kong for about one year early in 1950. He found that tremendous changes have taken place since he left. "You know, Hong Kong is changing every day," he said.
"I have heard that we used to have a wonderful view of the harbor through the window of my office, but it is quite different now," he said, pointing to a high-rise building standing before his office. It is one of the examples that illustrate the fast changes of Hong Kong, Ting added.
Ting was born in Shanghai and went to Paris in his youth with his parents. He served as deputy head of the EU Commission Delegation in Beijing eight years ago.
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