From left: Mr. Stephen Wong, Regional director Europe, HKTDC, Egil Hagen, Einar Steen-Olsen, Rudi Bolsøy and Bjarte Eikeseth, Norge Hong Kong Handelskammer.

Our Norway-Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce was well represented on this year’s Hong Kong Forum, the 15th Forum for Hong Kong’s numerous friends and representatives on all 5 continents.

The Forum gives its delegates an excellent update on the present and expected future development in Hong Kong and in mainland China. The speakers ranged from Government ministers, (chief executives’ own secretaries (ministers) to top executives of Hong Kong based and foreign companies.

Among the topics were:

• Hong Kong Brand Central –using Hong Kong as base for expanding their business in the region
• The Expressway to Asia Success – winning strategies for business success in Asia
• The premier Global Hub for renmimbi Business – Hong Kong’s role as an offshore Chinese renmimbi centre
• Taking China to the World – Chinese business leaders sharing their strategies of running successful private enterprises in the Chinese mainland.
• Flying high in Hong Kong – foreign entrepreneurs shared their stories on how they made business success stories in Hong Kong and in the region.
• Hong Kong – an insider story – a closed- door session on an insider’s look at Hong Kong’s latest economic and political scene.

All in all a very good way to get a quick update on Hong Kong future, especially on the background of the recent student demonstrations in Hong Kong which were ended last week while we were there.
Further news on Hong Kong’s development will be given at our Chinese New Year Seminar on February 5, next year.

Hong Kong offers excellent opportunities for companies selling retail products as well as for shoppers.
It has a huge market: on top of its own 7 million consumers, Hong Kong welcomes 49 million shoppers from mainland China and 6 million from other countries each year. Most of these go there for shopping.

Hong Kong SAR Government signed Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) with Norway and other five Nordic countries

On 22 August 2014, the Special Representative for Hong Kong Economic and Trade Affairs to the European Union, Ms. Linda Lai, signed agreements in Paris on behalf of the HKSAR Government with Ms. Inga M.W. Nyhamar, Chargé d'affaires a.i. of Norway to France and other five Nordic jurisdictions (namely, Denmark, the Faroes, Greenland, Iceland and Sweden) respectively, for exchange of information relating to taxes.
For details, see the Press Release by ISD.

3 September 2014
Twenty years ago, ahead of major changes facing the city, the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce organised the first of its annual business summits under the banner "Mapping the Future of Hong Kong." It was a time of uncertainty about what the 1997 handover would bring: one headline in 1995 even predicted "The Death of Hong Kong." In the lead-up to its November 2014 business summit, the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce's CEO, Shirley Yuen, explains why the naysayers "couldn't have been more wrong."
Read the complete article in the Hong Kong Trader

At a round table meeting with Associate Director General Andrew Davis of Invest Hong Kong at Oslo Chamber of Commerce Monday November 17, he pointed out the very clear business advantages of establishing your company in Hong Kong. Among the most evident advantages are:

• Excellent connections and travel facilities, more than 1000 daily flights internationally
• Gateway to Mainland China, largest logistics centre in Asia together with Singapore and Shanghai.
• Hong Kong’s advantage through “One country two systems”: customs free access to Mainland China.
• 15 % personal tax and 16,5 % corporate tax
• Human capital: some of the best universities in the world
• Best place to start new business – for the last 20 years.
• Western business culture – no corruption tolerance
• Respect for law and order – CSR – IPR

Click HERE to read the presentation (PDF file, 3.6 MB).