Interview: China's Entry Into WTO Key to HK's Ties With UKBritish Council-General in Hong Kong James Hodge Thursday said China's impending entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) is crucial to the relations between Britain and Hong Kong and will turn over a new leaf for the bilateral trade."Half of the British trade (about 3 billion pounds) with China every year has to pass through Hong Kong, making Hong Kong an extremely important gateway between the two countries," Hodge told Xinhua. Figures showed that by May this year, British firms had reportedly invested in 2,645 joint ventures in China involving a paid-in capital of 5.6 billion pounds with a further 10.5 billion pounds contracted. And in the first five months, 91 new British enterprises were set up on China's mainland with a contractual capital of 212 million pounds while the visible trade with China is at 2 billion pounds. Hodge believed that the significant event will trigger a new surge in both the visible and invisible trade between Britain and Hong Kong. "We have a lot of work to do to promote stronger trade ties and ties in other areas," he said. According to Hodge, a collaborate project, called INTERGER Hong Kong Pavilion, an innovative, environment-friendly and technologically-advanced "flat of the future" exhibition with a total investment of 39 million HK dollars (US$5 million), will go on show next year. The joint initiative between the Hong Kong government and the British Trade International has been designed specifically to demonstrate how challenges of Hong Kong's high-rise, high-temperature and high-humidity environment could be met today to produce intelligent, greener flats for tomorrow. Hodge said joint efforts will also be made to develop a number of educational programs in language teaching and training of young Chinese lawyers, to enhance the exchange of technological personnel in environmental protection. Looking forward into the new century, Hodge said the policy of "one country, two system" has been well implemented and Hong Kong people have always enjoyed a high degree of autonomy for the past three years since Hong Kong returned to China in 1997. Despite the prevailing view on a slowdown of Hong Kong's economy in 2001, Hodge said he was optimistic of a continuing growth rise. "The government managed to bring Hong Kong to a quick recovery from the Asian financial crisis and it can also lead Hong Kong into the new century with a big success," he said. According to the recent 2000 Business Confidence Survey, 97 percent of the British Chamber of Commerce members are confident about the state of the local economy. Mervyn Davies, chairman of the chamber, believed that the members' optimism was well-founded and British businesses find Hong Kong excellent in terms of its communications, geographical location, infrastructure, free port status and taxation system. |
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