Guests and delegates expressed their appreciation at the opening ceremony on Tuesday of the Heilongjiang investment and trade fair in Hong Kong, noting the cultural industry promotion from China's northernmost province highlights new common ground between the distant cousins.

The histories of Heilongjiang and Hong Kong actually have similarities - their contacts with foreign cultures, said Pan Chunliang, head of foreign communication department of Heilongjiang.

"I'm impressed that Hong Kong people have good understanding of our province, and this wonderful fair brings a new insight into Heilongjiang's cultural industries," said Pan.

Heilongjiang has been influenced by foreigners from Russia and other parts of Europe who established businesses, founded churches and started publishing houses. The Russian touch remains in the architecture of many buildings in the province, he said.

Pan spoke at the fair held in the ballroom of Grand Hyatt hotel in Hong Kong, where dazzling arts and crafts and unique paintings were on display. Some 400 guests attended the fair.

One of the guests, Chiu Lien Fan, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said she was pleased to see the amazing artwork and called decoration of the fair venue "beautiful".

Long engaged in promoting the partnership between the mainland and Hong Kong, Yu Sun-say, chairman of HKI Group, said Heilongjiang has great business potential due to its geographic advantages.

The northeastern province has opened Sino-Russian border trade zones in Suifenhe, Heihe and Dongning. The gross export value of the three zones reached $10.5 billion, 66 percent of the province's total exports to Russia last year.

Ye Xiaofeng, head of the department of commerce of Heilongjiang, said the province's promotion of business and investment reached new heights.

By the end of last year, foreign companies from 77 countries and regions invested in Heilongjiang. Thirty-two investors in 42 projects were from the world's top 500 companies.

"We hope to receive more investment from Hong Kong," he said.

Ye added that the property market in Heilongjiang proved to be very attractive to Hong Kong investors due to "the more reasonable property prices".

"The average property prices are around 3,000 yuan to 4,000 yuan per sq m - vastly lower than Hong Kong," said Ye.

(China Daily 05/15/2008 page13)