Southeast Asia and Middle East want more business ties with Hong Kong

HONG KONG: Hong Kong offers an ideal corridor for Southeast Asia and Middle East businesses to expand because of its large pool of talent and sophisticated legal and financial services.

Analysts speaking at the Belt and Road Summit at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre said that these regions were growing fast and cooperation between them and Hong Kong should be nurtured.

In a South China Morning Post report, Bank of China deputy general manager of global corporate banking Winnie Fan said that Hong Kong has distinct advantages.

“It is recognized for having a world-class business environment with simple and low taxation, a sound legal system, free flow of capital and efficient financial structure, multiple cross-border channels and also the largest and most important global offshore [yuan] business hub,” said Fan.

Philippine Stock Exchange director Andrew Gan said that in the Philippines where the need for infrastructure development is great, Hong Kong’s expertise on impact investing and on environmental, social and governance issues could make a lot of difference.

Malaysia’s minister for investment, trade and industry, Tengku Zafrul Aziz, said joint research programmes or university consortiums among higher-learning institutions in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Hong Kong could yield benefits.

“We should be working on creating institutions for technical education for our regions. Much has been done, and more is required. This is something that the belt and road can consider. The apparent shift to the green transition is welcomed, but the contribution to the soft infrastructure, the human capital of the partner nations, will be doubly so.”

Transformasi Industri Strategik & Kelestarian 🇲🇾🤝🇭🇰

Saya turut menyampaikan visi Malaysia di Belt & Road Summit 2024 di Hong Kong, menekankan kepentingan kerjasama antara Asia dan Timur Tengah.

Program berskala besar ini menghimpunkan pelbagai pihak dari seluruh dunia 🌍.… pic.twitter.com/vdMnY35j60

— Tengku Zafrul 🇲🇾 (@tzafrul_aziz) September 12, 2024

Laila Al-Jefairi, director of the professional services sector at the Qatar Financial Centre, said: “As of today, we have more than 2,200 companies that are registered in the QFC, and 18 of them are Chinese companies. We hope to see this number increasing in the near future. We need to see more Chinese companies coming to Qatar and I want to assure you that the culture is the same… in the sense that we need to build personal relationships and then business relationships and then trust. These factors are crucial to doing business in Qatar.”