SUBSCRIBE TO THE BULLETIN TODAY!

The Chamber's
International Character

The theme of this year's Chamber Business Summit on November 25 will serve to remind all of us that Hong Kong is an international city which must look out globally in its economic positioning.  China is very important to Hong Kong, and our economy is now tied closer than ever to China's, and the Chamber recognised that long ago -- its proposal of the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) with the Mainland is one testament of this recognition.  But we must keep in mind that Hong Kong's ability to develop and prosper rely on our international character.  Putting it frankly, we mainly add value to China by being international.

The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce is in the same predicament.  The Chamber must retain its international character.  We now have 25 percent of our members being foreign invested firms, with 70 percent Hong Kong invested and 5 percent being from Mainland China.  We use English in over 90 percent of our programs, and we have a network that reaches all over the world.  Only then are we useful to our members from China and to our members from across the sea.  China knows that we can help Chinese companies wanting to "go out," and foreign firms know that we speak their language and understand them as they explore business opportunities in Hong Kong and in China. There are many good local business associations in town, but they almost always speak Cantonese and their global network is substantially less than ours.  There are many good foreign business associations in town, but they almost always are focused mainly on the interests of companies from their home country.

The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce has a much wider interest, wider reach, wider network, and wider breadth of knowledge.  Our trade committees are very active, organising trips to Indonesia, Japan, and later this fall to Brazil, Argentina and Chile just this year.   We host almost 100 delegations from overseas per year.  And foreign members can benefit from our China committee -- whose meetings are conducted in English -- which organises trips to China five or six times a year and hosts up to 100 delegations from China per year.  We work hard to maintain our international character and China connections.

Therefore, if you are from a foreign invested firm which is not a Chamber member and happen to pick up this magazine, I urge you to consider joining immediately.  This is because if you chose to be here in Hong Kong for the city's international character and China connections, then you ought to choose membership in our Chamber for exactly the same reasons.  Come to our Business Summit on November 25 to see for yourself what we mean by that.

Eden Woon
CEO
HKGCC