Hong Kong, ranked as the world’s most free economy, is keen on wooing Indian firms in a big way to attract investments in six key sectors, including health, ICT, education and innovation and technology.
“There are 1500 companies from India currently operating in Hong Kong, including HCL, Infosys, Titan, TCS, HCL and we are keen on attracting more firms to Hong Kong,” Charles Ng, Additional Director General, InvestHK, a department of the Hong Kong Government, said.
“There are currently 12 Indian banks in Hong Kong and four more are in the process of obtaining licence,” Mr. Charles, who was in the city to set up the India Representative office of InvestHK, told PTI here on Tuesday.
Listing out Hong Kong’s advantages which included its geographical location, “low simple taxation” and exemption, existence of world class infrastructure and connectivity, he said for more than 150 years, the region had been the preferred entry point of mainland China for business.
Given its advantages, Indian firms which were keen in being near the manufacturing hub in China and operate in Hong Kong (which had among the lowest corporate taxation rates) should look at investments there, he said.
Hong Kong offered huge opportunities in financial services, trade, innovation and technology. Being a major trading centre and a hub of many banking financial services and data centres which were looking out to upgrade their technology, it meant good business opportunities for Indian IT software, hardware and services firm.
Hong Kong’s advantage in terms of access to procurement, distribution, import and export trading finance and raw material offered opportunities, made it a hub for logistics and firms catering to this space and IT upgradation would find enough business opportunities, Mr. Charles said.
Apart from these traditional pillars, the new emerging sector was testing and certification. “We are keen that Hong Kong turns into a testing hub in Asia,” he said.
Innovation and technology was another such area. Hong Kong had the presence of several R&D clusters and those dealing with environment and energy renewal.
“With Hong Kong offering IP protection, several global firms had invested in R&D in Hong Kong,” he said, while citing the example of Dupont which had set up its global research centre on photovatic cells in that country.
The growing pollution in China also offered opportunities for firms dealing with environment and renewable energy.
Professional consultancy firms like human resources, law, accounting were also seeing greater demand in Hong Kong.
The greatest opportunity lay in innovation. With several factories in China moving up the value chain, there was a demand for innovative and creative designs for industrial and consumer products. These creative industries were keen in hiring the services of firms that could provide them innovation in terms of design and technology, he said.
Digital entertainment space was also catching up in a big way and there was a demand for those catering to this space, Mr. Charles said.
