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Roundup: More Entrepreneurs Will Come for Better Opportunities
Celebrities from the world's business community to the Fortune Global Forum, which closed Thursday afternoon in Hong Kong, agreed that Hong Kong remains an international metropolis with an attractive business environment four years after its return to China.
In their speeches at the forum, heads of multinationals, a group of business elite who are notoriously sensitive to changes, say the Hong Kong they see today is truly an ideal place for business operations, particularly because of its complete infrastructure facilities and full-fledged legal system, among other things.
They may still have remembered that six years ago when its first Forum was launched, the Fortune magazine carried a special report which painted, shortly before its return to China, a gloomy picture for Hong Kong's future development.
Ironically, now at a time of a global economic slowdown, AOL Time Warner Inc., the owner of the prestigious magazine, chose Hong Kong as the venue of this year's Fortune Global Forum, on a stringent and nit-picking criterion: the host of the forum must be a city with a widely acknowledged dynamic economy.
Yes, Hong Kong is a city with a widely acknowledged dynamic economy. Statistics show that Hong Kong has made great progress in boosting economic growth since the founding of the Special Administrative Region (SAR) in 1997, given the Asian financial crisis. While the growth of the world economy was slowing down in 2000, Hong Kong scored a growth rate of 10 percent, the highest in 15 years. Total exports of the year rose by 7.5 percent on an annual basis. Hong Kong's foreign exchange reserve amounted to 115. 1 billion U.S. dollars at the end of April this year, compared with 66.6 billion U.S. dollars in May 1997, the eve of Hong Kong's return to China.
According to Mike Rowse, director general of Investment Promotion under the Hong Kong SAR, multinationals, in a bid to take the stake they claim in the Hong Kong market, are quick to have their regional headquarters or representative offices registered here by an average of one in every week. To date, they have established more than 3,000 such branches in Hong Kong -- a tiny place with an area of 1,066 square kilometers and a population of over six million.
John Needham, president of Fortune Multimedia, the Fortune Group, made it clear that they want an office opened in Hong Kong due to its excellent infrastructure facilities. Graham Brant, general manager of Microsoft (Hong Kong) Ltd., was encouraged by the spirit of rule of law in Hong Kong, saying the sound legal system here is the key factor that attracts investors from the rest of the world.
Just as speakers at the current Forum, which had more than 700 participants, agreed that Hong Kong is enjoying a thriving economy, it is clear that more entrepreneurs will come for better opportunities in the days to come.
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