Background on Hong Kong and Zhaoqing

About Hong Kong
About Zhaoqing

About Hong Kong

Hong Kong plays a remarkable role as a place for multinational firms to access the strengths of the Greater-Pearl River Delta (PRD), China and the Asia Pacific region as a whole. In particular, its banking system, legal set-up, infrastructure and logistics are the top league by any standard. These advantages produce complementary strengths of Hong Kong and the rest of Pan-PRD by inputting professional knowledge, management skills and international experiences.

In 2007, Hong Kong's GDP grew by 6.3% and reached USD 206.7 billion. The total value of trade in goods was USD 651.5 billion and direct investment inflow was USD 44.9 billion in 2006. It has consistently retained its position as Asia's second-largest destination for FDI after the Mainland.

Hong Kong is the preferred location in Asia for regional headquarters and offices. As of June 2007, a total of 3,890 overseas companies had regional operations in Hong Kong. This breaks down to 1,246 regional headquarters and 2,644 regional offices.

The implementation of the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) between the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Central People's Government further opens up new and exciting opportunities in the Mainland for both local and international companies and individual investors based in Hong Kong in the areas of trade in goods, trade in services, and trade and investment facilitation. It now provides preferential and accelerated market access to 38 key service sectors in the Mainland, as well as offering zero import tariffs on Hong Kong-made goods that meet the rules of origin.

About Zhaoqing

Located inside the PRD region, Zhaoqing is one of the fastest growing cities in China. Its GDP growth rate was 15.3% in 2007. It has a diversified economy which includes electronic component and electronic information equipment manufacturing, micro-biology, engineering and pharmacy, food and beverages, auto-parts, metal processing, textiles, timber processing and construction materials.  A large number of leading international companies have established their production facilities in Zhaoqing.  The utilised foreign direct investment by Zhaoqing was USD 775 million in 2007.

US and Zhaoqing have strong ties in various areas including business, tourism, education and R&D.  The total trade between US and Zhaoqing was USD 708 million in 2007.  At present there are over 1,300 foreign-invested enterprises in Zhaoqing, including 59 companies from US.  They play an important role in helping Zhaoqing become a modern industrial city.  The city plans to focus on metal processing, renewable energy, equipment manufacturing with emphasis on auto parts, special equipment, general machinery, electronic information technology and biopharmaceuticals.  There are abundant opportunities for US investors in these areas.