Hong Kong joining the Regional Comprehensive Partnership (RCEP) will not only bring about more opportunities and benefits to the Hong Kong economy and its many businesses, but also serve to accelerate the growth and development of RCEP member countries.
As a strategically located international finance, business and investment hub, Hong Kong is a super-connector, linking key markets with one another. It also doubles as the international gateway to the vibrant and rapidly growing Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) and Mainland China, making it the ideal springboard for RCEP businesses to access and expand in the vast China market.
At the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), we have always championed new market diversification for Hong Kong SMEs, and so RCEP was promoted as attractive new markets to look at, even if their traditional markets are in the United States or Europe. As the world’s largest trade pact, the RCEP has many advantages – especially for SMEs – including a chapter on e-commerce.
The international fairs and conferences HKTDC organizes annually are important platforms for businesses around the world to connect, build ties and seize opportunities. We are keen to increase RCEP participation at events in which we showcase Hong Kong’s unique business and investment platform.
For example, at the Eigth Belt and Road Summit held in Hong Kong in September, more than 10 memoranda of understanding (MoU) and agreements were signed with RCEP member countries and businesses in various areas, including innovation and technology, retail, infrastructure, environmental and industrial development. Furthermore, cooperation agreements were signed on promoting data centre infrastructure and economic development in the Mekong Delta region between Hong Kong company NDN Group and Vietnam’s Innovation Centre, and on autonomous indoor service robots between Hong Kong Rice Robotics Limited and New Zealand RCR Infrastructure Limited.
Business matching and deal-making are central to our events. The HKTDC has successfully helped facilitate deal-making that benefits the countries or regions involved. For example, our teams facilitated an airport expansion project in Thailand, a new toll road in Myanmar and a new, affordable cancer laboratory in Vietnam. We also facilitated the building of data centre infrastructure in ASEAN to catalyse their digital economy. We can help RCEP businesses with their business matching and deal-making, to help them access and expand in Hong Kong, the GBA and wider China market.
Aside from the fairs and conferences, high-level and industry-specific business missions to RCEP countries are also organized year-round. For example, the Think Business, Think Hong Kong (TBTHK) campaign, which was held in Bangkok in July, connected Hong Kong businesses with their RCEP counterparts to explore and seize opportunities in fintech, supply chain management and sustainable development.
Other campaigns include Building for the Future, focusing on infrastructure and real estate related services (IRES), as well as Resolve2Win, which promotes Hong Kong’s legal and dispute resolution services, from which RCEP businesses can continue to benefit. The HKTDC also stages product showcases and Hong Kong pavilions at leading fairs in RCEP countries to strengthen ties with RCEP businesses across various sectors.
RCEP marks the first time Mainland China, Japan and Korea are in a single free trade bloc, and Hong Kong joining the world’s largest trade pact will enable all RCEP members to have greater and easier access to do business and expand via the city.
RCEP members are already entitled to preferential treatment when trading among one another. Looking ahead, RCEP will eventually eliminate more than 90 per cent of tariffs on imports between its members, to further facilitate trade and investment flows among them. Hong Kong joining the bloc will not only benefit from this development, but also offer many arising opportunities for RCEP members to easily seize.
Hong Kong’s merchandise trade with Korea and Japan reached $399 billion and $390 billion, respectively, in 2021, which is expected to grow with the opportunities RCEP offers. According to an HKTDC research report released in May, around 90 per cent of Japanese companies in Hong Kong were doing business with at least one RCEP market, and 61.5 per cent have plans to expand their RCEP business operations through their Hong Kong office within the next three years.
We also have year-round promotion programmes to entice Japanese companies to leverage the Hong Kong platform to expand their business to the mainland and ASEAN, including in the food and sake industry, silver market, healthcare products and technology. In regard to Korea, the HKTDC will organize signature outreach events to engage business leaders from Korea and Hong Kong for high-level exchanges.
Patrick Lau, Deputy Executive Director, Marketing, HKTDC