A man who went missing in Tsing Yi has been located.
Shek Ming-kwun, aged 81, went missing after he left his residence in Cheung Wang Estate, Tsing Yi on December 11 morning. His family made a report to Police on the same day.
The man was located in Cheung Wang Estate last night (December 12). He sustained no injuries and no suspicious circumstances were detected.
The Director-General of Investment Promotion, Mr Stephen Phillips, said today (December 12) that recent surveys showed that the city remains a magnet for overseas and Mainland businesses while its start-up ecosystem is thriving.
Mr Phillips said, "Hong Kong continues to attract and retain leading overseas and Mainland companies, as well as entrepreneurs from around the globe setting up leading edge and innovative businesses. Factors that attract world-class investment include Hong Kong's strategic position in the region as well as its international status as a sophisticated business and financial city with a business-friendly environment. Companies are increasingly seizing new opportunities arising from the Belt and Road Initiative and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area development.
"Hong Kong's startup ecosystem has skyrocketed in the last few years. The results showed that as at November 2018, the number of startups grew by 18 per cent year on year, and jobs created surged by 51 per cent.
"The startup community is also highly international, with 35 per cent of founders coming from outside Hong Kong. Vibrant sectors include fintech, followed by e-commerce/supply chain management/logistics technology, professional or consultancy services, information, computers and and technology."
According to the 2018 Annual Survey of Companies in Hong Kong with Parent Companies Located Outside Hong Kong jointly conducted by Invest Hong Kong (InvestHK) and the Census and Statistics Department, the number of business operations in Hong Kong with parent companies overseas and in Mainland China climbed 6.4 per cent to 8 754 in 2018, compared to 8 225 a year ago. The 8 754 respondent companies comprised 1 530 operating as regional headquarters (RHQs), 2 425 as regional offices (ROs) and 4 799 as local offices (LOs). The number of RHQs showed a robust growth of 8.3 per cent from 1 413 last year, revealing the key role Hong Kong plays for many businesses across Asia.
In terms of jobs, the number of people engaged by the companies reached an all-time high at 485 000, compared to 443 000 in 2017. In terms of source country/territory, Mainland China ranked first with 1 591 companies, followed by Japan (1 393), the United States (1 351), the United Kingdom (712) and Singapore (427).
The survey also collected views on the attractiveness of Hong Kong as a location for setting up businesses. Favourable factors included "simple tax system and low tax rate" (67 per cent), "free flow of information" (62 per cent), "free port status" (59 per cent) and "geographical location" (59 per cent).
In addition, InvestHK's 2018 Annual Start-up Survey found that there were 2 625 startups operating in major public and private co-work spaces and incubators, up 18 per cent from 2 229 in 2017. Together these startups employed 9 548 people, a 51 per cent rise over 6 320 in 2017. Of the founders, 62 per cent were from Hong Kong, and 35 per cent from outside Hong Kong, of whom 17 per cent came from the UK, 16 per cent from the US, 12 per cent from Mainland China and 9 per cent from Australia. Major sectors included fintech (16 per cent), followed by e-commerce/supply chain management/logistics technology (11 per cent), professional or consultancy services (11 per cent), information, computer and technology (10 per cent).
About InvestHK
InvestHK is the department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government responsible for attracting foreign direct investment and supporting overseas and Mainland businesses to set up or expand in Hong Kong. It provides free advice and customised services for overseas and Mainland companies. For more information, please visit www.investhk.gov.hk.
The Commerce and Economic Development Bureau (CEDB) held the "Belt and Road: Hong Kong – IN" Forum today (December 12) to explore how professionals and start-ups might use Hong Kong as a springboard for the Belt and Road markets. More than 650 professionals from various service sectors including accounting, insurance and risk management, finance, infrastructure and related construction, legal and dispute resolution, project management, as well as business and industrial representatives and young innovation and technology entrepreneurs, participated in the Forum.
The Chief Executive, Mrs Carrie Lam, and the Deputy Director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, Mr Huang Liuquan, delivered opening remarks at the Forum.
Mrs Lam said that the Belt and Road Initiative involves manifold infrastructure projects such as airports, railways, ports and energy, as well as the development of Economic and Trade Co-operation Zones and new cities. Professionals and entrepreneurs from different sectors can capitalise on Hong Kong's edge in professional services and their own expertise by participating in these projects, fully demonstrating Hong Kong's "can do" spirit.
At the sharing session of the Forum, the Executive Chairman of the Alibaba Group, Mr Jack Ma, offered his insights from the perspective of private enterprises on leveraging Hong Kong’s advantages in professional services and expertise to serve as the launch-pad into the Belt and Road markets. In particular, he shared with the audience Belt and Road opportunities that are available for young professionals and those areas where they might make a contribution. The Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Mr Edward Yau, was the moderator of the sharing session.
Following the Forum, Mrs Lam, Mr Huang, Mr Yau and Mr Ma, together with the President of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), Professor Timothy Tong, and the Chairman of the Hong Kong Chinese Enterprises Association, Mr Gao Yingxin, officiated at the inauguration of the Belt and Road Cross-Professional Advancement Programme.
The Belt and Road Cross-Professional Advancement Programme, which is undertaken by PolyU with funding support from the Professional Services Advancement Support Scheme managed by the CEDB, seeks to better equip Hong Kong professionals in meeting the challenges and grasping the opportunities brought about by the Belt and Road Initiative.
Through collaboration with the Hong Kong Chinese Enterprises Association and other Hong Kong professional associations, workshops and cross-professional networking and sharing sessions will be organised under the Programme, which will initially last for 12 months. Hong Kong professionals will be connected with business leaders and academics from Belt and Road-related countries and regions. Programme participants will be able to network, share knowledge and collaborate in aspects of the Belt and Road, while at the same time utilising the strengths of Hong Kong professional services, thereby facilitating the partnership between professionals and businesses in grasping Belt and Road opportunities together.
Following is the speech by the Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Mr Edward Yau, at the plenary session on the implications of the Belt and Road Initiative on the development of international tourism of the Hong Kong International Tourism Convention today (December 12):
Ministers, excellencies, distinguished speakers,
Since many speakers have spoken on the bigger picture, I am not going to overload you with further information. Perhaps as a host speaking on behalf of Hong Kong, I would like to share some observations on this very topic. I would start with a quote which might be irrelevant, a quote by a Greek philosopher from 3,000 years ago. He said, "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man." However, it could be a very befitting description of the business we are in – tourism. Every day, we handle new visitors who come to the city for a new experience; at the same time, we are entertaining and receiving visitors coming for numerous times yet still looking for a new experience. I think that is exactly the challenge, and the difficulty, that cities like Hong Kong, Macao or cities in this region are facing.
For Hong Kong, as you have heard, we are the world's number one destination eight years in a row, handling nearly 60 million visitors per year. Many of them might be coming to our city for the second, third or many times. We also have this very gigantic number, 60 million visitors, against 7.4 million of the total population, which is eightfold of our local residents. I believe some experiences Hong Kong has encountered might be of relevance to our common challenges in this business. So I will point out four areas.
First, tourists these days begin their journey well before they set foot in a city. I say so because the tour journey starts usually not by plane, nor from any hotel, but actually it starts at the desktop computer, the cellphone, the pictures on Instagram or Twitter, through word of mouth and also comments on social media. So actually the journey starts well before they set off.
My second observation is that tourists know far more than before, fortunately or unfortunately, not from official channels, but from, for instance, Twitter. I know Mr Hong (Founder of Lvmama and Chairman of Joyu Group, Mr Hong Qinghua) would have a lot to say. In fact, non-official information actually plays a more significant role than what we, the governments, are providing.
The third observation is that tourists do not just come to see. The old description of "sightseeing" is a bit outdated because nowadays you can see a lot of things on the web. People come here to experience.
Last but not the least, tourists these days instantly share their experience, real time, by split seconds, with their friends in other parts of the world. These are the major challenges that we are facing.
I would also add that the typical Hong Kong experience in this business includes a highly internationalised tourist mix and a very large group of Mainland visitors. The Chief Executive mentioned just now that this year we might be seeing 60 million tourists coming to Hong Kong, with 47 million of them from the Mainland. The other 13 million are overseas visitors coming to Hong Kong, and although they capture a smaller share, it is not a small number by itself. So we are facing a very dynamic internationalised clientele coming to Hong Kong as tourists.
The second experience that Hong Kong is having is that even Mainland visitors coming to Hong Kong are looking for some non-Mainland experience, because Hong Kong is not just another Chinese city. There is some uniqueness in every city, Hong Kong in particular.
The third challenge we are facing is that tourism nowadays is highly cross-region and highly cross-culture. This is self-explanatory and I won’t go into details.
Lastly, Hong Kong is taking advantage of the multi-destination travel that we are talking about in today's forum. Multi-destination means that people do not come to a single city for tourism experience. They are hopping on – using a place to go around. A figure that I can quote is that 49 per cent, almost half of the short haul visitors coming to Hong Kong are having multi-destination travel. For people coming here even for a very short while, say, a few days from nearby countries, almost half of them do not stop only in Hong Kong. So Secretary Tam's (Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture of Macao Special Administrative Region Government, Mr Alexis Tam) appeal for our friends to visit Macao is a reality. For long haul visitors, 88 per cent of them coming to Hong Kong are also multi-destination travellers. This backdrop gives us the context to talk about the Belt and Road Initiative and Greater Bay Area development.
I would also share four observations and experiences with members here as a kick-off for the ensuing discussion. First, “every bridge connects”. I say this because Hong Kong is actually having the privilege of two major cross-boundary infrastructures commissioned in the last two months, the Express Rail Link (Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link) and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. I say "every bridge connects" to emphasise that infrastructures, particularly roads, railways, bridges, airports and sea ports, are important infrastructures supporting tourism. And to a certain extent, some of these infrastructures by themselves are also tourist attractions. For our case, the bridge connecting Hong Kong, Macao and Zhuhai is heavily patronised by first-time visitors, who come not just to Hong Kong, Macao and Zhuhai, but simply to have an experience of the bridge. In the initial months after the bridge opened, we had a survey which showed that about one-fifth of the visitors actually come for a single day, just to travel upon the bridge. It also says how important the investment in infrastructures that connect cities, regions and countries is, and how such investment boosts and changes the tourism landscape.
The second observation also starts with "every”: "every visitor counts". That might be easier said than done. It might be just lip service, but with the experience I mentioned, with the very interesting background that we are having among our modern day visitors, every single visitor’s experience in a city or country actually counts. They bring back home their experience after visiting a city, and the experience they share and the comments they make on social media are also important. So that calls for a quick response from any government or tourism industry player in tackling problems, as well as leveraging on advantages. It also calls for inter-governmental co-ordination; streamlining of cross-boundary procedures; collaboration with the travel industry; enforcement of regulations and gauging tourists' feedback.
The third observation also starts with "every": "every bit local". It is in fact a tagline we used in one of our tourist promotions in the Shum Shui Po area in Hong Kong, a very localised district. While the world is getting highly globalised, travellers and visitors tend to focus on things that are local rather than metropolitan or international. People simply like to travel, shop, eat or dine like a local. So we discover the cities with very interesting facets that might not be revealed to visitors in the old days. We are talking about local culture, local delicacies, local traditions, local festivals, local designs or street corner cafés. This is in fact relevant to the new tagline that we are using in rediscovering our city tourism.
The final observation is "every difference makes a difference". Here I am talking about the diversity in any city and in our region. We are talking about rejuvenated heritage, in which Hong Kong, Macao and also Guangzhou have invested a lot. We are talking about the contrast between town and country. Yesterday night when I hosted a small dinner for incoming speakers, I talked about the "wow" factors created by the very stunning landscape on some of our coastline in the northeastern part of our territory, which surprised a lot of people as the common perception about Hong Kong is a metropolitan city. Actually, the hexagonal columns in the (Hong Kong UNESCO) Global Geopark in Sai Kung area are more spectacular than our skyscrapers on both sides of the harbour. These are the "wow" factors and differences that people coming to our city are getting. It also includes all the things about cross culture, about East meets West, and nature, which brings a contrast to a metropolitan city.
To conclude, these are small things that might be too easy to neglect by policy makers or the tourism industry. But these are all little things that a big city destination like Hong Kong is facing day-in and day-out. But nothing is better than having all these dots connected and these experiences shared in the forum today. We hope this would be one of the dots that would connect Hong Kong with the neighbouring cities in the Greater Bay Area. We hope this would connect Hong Kong and the tourism industry around the world when we explore the vast markets along the Belt and Road. With these remarks, I am happy to join the panel discussion and I wish you all a very good day. Thank you.
The Hong Kong International Tourism Convention, jointly organised by the Government, the Hong Kong Tourism Board and the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong, was successfully held today (December 12), providing a premier platform for over 1 000 participants from around the world to exchange views on leveraging the vast tourism potential of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area development.
Themed "Leveraging Belt and Road Initiative & Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Development", the Convention was attended by government officials, representatives of tourism authorities and trade members from the nine Mainland cities of the Greater Bay Area, the Macao Special Administrative Region and a number of other Mainland provinces, as well as 34 countries, including the Belt and Road countries.
The Chief Executive, Mrs Carrie Lam, delivered an opening address at the Convention, followed by addresses from Member of the Leadership of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism Mr Yu Qun; the Vice Governor of Guangdong Province, Mr Xu Ruisheng; the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture of the Macao Special Administrative Region Government, Mr Alexis Tam; and the Executive Director of the World Tourism Organization, Mr Zhu Shanzhong.
Noting that developing people-to-people bonds is one of the five connectivities pertaining to the Belt and Road Initiative, and tourism exchange is a powerful means of promoting such bonds, Mrs Lam said multilateral co-operation is central to the Belt and Road Initiative and to tourism development, and multi-destination visits can be effective in developing regional tourism.
"The Belt and Road Initiative is also about capacity building and sharing benefits. Hong Kong is an international hub for professional services, from financial and legal, to architectural, communications, transportation management and many more. We also run one of the largest hospitality and tourism schools in Asia. We have the expertise, the experience and the institutions to provide services to other economies along the Belt and Road on tourism infrastructure developments, as well as train professionals for the tourism industry," she said.
Mrs Lam also pointed out that new infrastructure projects enhancing connectivity such as the Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the upcoming land control point at Liantang/Heung Yuen Wai can open up new opportunities barely reachable before and provide a solid foundation for Hong Kong to serve as an international gateway of the Greater Bay Area.
After the opening session, two plenary sessions and a keynote luncheon were held. Speaking at the keynote luncheon, the Financial Secretary, Mr Paul Chan, said Hong Kong is committed to strengthening co-operation with different economies to promote tourism development, be it regionally or internationally.
"The Belt and Road Initiative and the Greater Bay Area development, which are about collaboration and sharing benefits, have presented us with new potential. And Hong Kong as the world's most visited city, freest economy, top financial centre, safest city, and one which has one of the world's best educational facilities and the world's top hotel brands, is your ready partner to leverage on the opportunities offered by the two initiatives," he said.
At the plenary session on the implications of the Belt and Road Initiative on the development of international tourism, the Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Mr Edward Yau, shared his observations on the tourism trend and Hong Kong's experience in coping with the challenges.
Other speakers at the two plenary sessions included the Director General of the Department of Culture and Tourism of Guangdong Province, Mr Wang Yiyang; the Director of the Macao Government Tourism Office, Ms Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes; the Executive Director of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, Mr Anthony Lau; the Founder of Lvmama and Chairman of Joyu Group, Mr Hong Qinghua; the Chairman of the Board of the Ocean Park Corporation, Mr Leo Kung; the Chairman of Cathay Pacific Airways Limited, Mr John Slosar; the President and Managing Director, Asia Pacific of the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Mr Michael Colglazier; the Chief Executive Officer of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, Mr Duncan Pescod; and the Associate Dean and Chair Professor of Tourism, Mr and Mrs Chan Chak Fu Professor in International Tourism of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Professor Song Haiyan.
