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| HK Trade Official Calls on SMEs to Explore Post-WTO Mainland Market |
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WED, DEC 12, 2001
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A Hong Kong trade promotion official Tuesday called on local small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to beef up economic integration with South China's Pearl River Delta area and actively expand domestic sales in China's WTO era.
Speaking of the implications of China's official WTO entry which fell on Tuesday, Woo Kwong-ching, chairman of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (TDC), said post-WTO mainland market offers huge opportunities for Hong Kong's SMEs in the services, domestic sales and other sectors.
The Chinese government has made four commitments in its efforts to obtain WTO membership, including removing all its import quotas by the year 2005, slashing its average import tariff from the current 14.8 percent to 8.9 percent, opening up its foreign trade sector in three years and opening up its services sector gradually by 2005.
These commitments for the first time gave Hong Kong SMEs green light to tap into China's domestic market and expand their sales, said Woo. Hong Kong's SMEs can serve as middlemen to bring China's products to overseas markets and vice versa, he said.
Services sector is the pillar of the Hong Kong economy, which generates 85 percent of Hong Kong's total Gross Domestic Products (GDP). While on the mainland, the service sector only contributes 33 percent of the overall GDP.
With the mainland's WTO accession and the gradual opening up of its services market, Hong Kong's services providers will have an increasingly important role to play in the mainland, said Woo.
Woo stressed the need of establishing closer economic links between Hong Kong and the mainland's Pearl River Delta area. The area is not only Hong Kong's economic hinterland but also a big consumer market with a population of more than 30 million, he said.
Currently, potentialities of Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta area as an integrated economic zone have not been given full play, said Woo. He called on enterprises in the two places to strengthen cooperation.
"Further integration within the Hong Kong-Pearl River Delta economic zone will help enhance the zone's function as one of the most important economic locomotives in the Asian region," he said.
However, Woo pointed out that China's entry to the WTO, while bringing about immense business opportunities, also means intensified competition and challenges for Hong Kong's SMEs.
He urged Hong Kong SMEs to sharpen their core competence, step up efforts to explore overseas markets as well as fully prepare themselves to tap into the domestic markets. "Using the mainland as their manufacturing bases, Hong Kong's SMEs can obtain a more stable and predictable export environment," he said.
Woo also said the TDC is planning to stage more than 100 promotion campaigns for Hong Kong's SMEs to obtain more knowledge of the mainland markets. The TDC also set up 11 offices in the mainland to help SMEs to enter the mainland's market, he said.
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