Fan Waves the Flag for Hong Kong Business
by October 2, 2000 12:00 am 109 views
Within five hours of Hong Kong, you can reach half the population of the world. That was just one of the selling points of doing business in Hong Kong that was discussed Sept. 21 at the monthly meeting of the International Trade Council of Northwest Arkansas.
rRaymond Fan, director of the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office in New York and a member of the International Trade Administration, discussed his home country’s economic development and potential markets with a group of area business people at the Hilton Fayetteville.
rOn the 30th stop of a 31-state tour, Fan made several comparisons between Hong Kong’s drawing power over Beijing, China. After the infamous Tiananmen Square student protest in 1989, the future was very uncertain for China and Hong Kong, Fan said.
r”My job was impossible,” he said. “No one wanted to do business with China. But the buck stops in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is not Beijing.”
rIn 1984, the United Kingdom and the People’s Republic of China signed a treaty that democratic Hong Kong would remain basically the same when it was turned over to communist China in 1997. And despite being in China with a one-country, two-economic system arrangement, Fan said Hong Kong has flourished.
r”Basically the government does nothing about business in Hong Kong,” Fan said. “But the people make the right decisions. And Hong Kong trade shows are the best in the world.”
rAnother misconception, Fan said, is the “Made in Hong Kong” phrase.
r”Practically nothing is manufactured in Hong Kong anymore,” he said. “If you find something made in Hong Kong, keep it. It’s a collector’s item now.”