Each year at this time, the Chamber begins the annual membership renewal process by sending renewal notices to our members. We naturally look back at the year to see what we have done for members and how we can persuade them to renew their membership. Many of you do appreciate the work we do and the services we provide by signing up again, but unfortunately -- and disappointingly for us -- some of you apparently do not believe that there are sufficient reasons for you to renew your membership.

This year, as we look back at 2003, we found more reasons than ever for you to continue your membership in the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce. Two acronyms stand out in trying to catalogue what we have done for you this year: SARS and CEPA. One was bad news for Hong Kong, and the other is good news for Hong Kong. And the Chamber worked hard on both of them.

With SARS, we helped members through words and through action. While Hong Kong was fighting this terrible disease on the medical front, we fought on the economic front. We solicited views, many of them heart-wrenching, from our members and suggestions to forward to the government on what it should do -- many were adopted by the government. We offered advice to members on what they should do to weather the storm. We told the world of the true situation here in Hong Kong by drafting letters for our members to send out to friends and clients overseas and by speaking out to our international contacts and to the international press. We participated in the Operation Unite campaign to bring society together, and we offered a 555 Revival plan for Hong Kong that was widely acknowledged as being the appropriate plan to take Hong Kong upwards again.

With CEPA, many people know the Chamber initiated this idea back in 2000. Vice Premier Wu Yi, in our Chamber's meeting with her in early September, told me that this idea was "excellent, and had creativity!" The public acknowledges that the Chamber played a persistent and pivotal role in pushing for this agreement to be signed in late June this year. Our education process of our members and of the community went unabated in early 2003 and also in the second half after signing. Many of our members' suggestions were taken aboard by the SAR and Central governments. While we realise that not every member of the Chamber will benefit from CEPA, many will directly and others indirectly. At the very least, confidence has returned to Hong Kong thanks to a large part to CEPA. Finally, we published a 140-page CEPA Report on November 1 to help members take advantage of CEPA.(see http://www.chamber.org.hk/wto/content/CEPA_order_form.asp)