Dongguan is a place of great strategic importance for investment, where tens of thousands of Hong Kong companies choose to build their factories. Recently, the Dongguan government has put forward many supporting measures, to correspond with the central government's policy of helping Hong Kong companies to upgrade their integration with mainland enterprises. The local government sent some officers to Hong Kong last month to explain the important policies to the business circles.

I believe whatever the Dongguan leaders are doing is out of goodwill and that is what we should appreciate. But when it comes to the implementation of the policy, there is still something to be improved, for example the security environment. In some areas, the problem-solving style of some police officers has more or less frightened away some Hong Kong businessmen. When I talked with my friend about the investment in the mainland, several who have invested in Dongguan have shared their stories with me. Here are some examples.

Case One: In a town in Dongguan, a worker at a Hong Kong company stole goods valued at several thousand dollars. He was caught red-handed, so the company reported the case to the local police. However, to everyone's surprise, the police said because cases of this kind were numerous, the police's strength was inadequate to deal with a theft whose loss was less than HK$20,000. They didn't accept the case or put it on record. After this, the thief went away unpunished. Unexpectedly, this worker was able to claim reimbursement from the labor bureau after the company ended the contract unilaterally.

Case Two: A worker stole several boxes of goods from a factory. The value of the goods was in the tens of thousands of dollars. He was caught and turned over to police. The officers, nevertheless, rejected the case after hearing the details, on grounds that police had only the company's word that the value of the good was more than HK$20,000 and there was no confirming evidence . As a result, the thief was released immediately and asked for reimbursement from the company for loss of employment.

Case Three: A driver at a factory ran away with a truck and the goods it was carrying. The company sought help from the police again. Police finally accepted the complaint. But the company had to pay a so-called "case-handling fee". The case was solved and the goods were returned to the factory, but instead of charging the driver, the police held him in detention for a few days and then released him. Police explained that going to court is time-consuming and they didn't have the "leisure time" to do that. What's more, the officers sent an expense list to the factory and asked for money, claiming all the spending during the case-solving period, including the expenses for traveling, accommodation and even entertainment, such as karaoke.

These examples recounted by different people are beyond belief. Why would this kind of cases even exist in a modern society? According to some Hong Kong investors, the leading reason is instability in the population. The floating population is too large to be counted in the city, so no accurate statistics can be made. The police strength and supporting facilities, as a result, are in critical shortage, since the government assigns resources to an area according to its population. Moreover, the quality of police is uneven, the good and the bad are intermingled, causing many more problems.

The investors have general faith in the quality of most policemen in Dongguan. This group of police officers are qualified and contributive: they defend the law; they uphold justice; and they are brave enough to sacrifice themselves. However, what the government should do is to pay attention to the black sheep in the community and bring order out of chaos. Only when the evil groups are eliminated from the police force can the authority demonstrate it is reliable and therefore will be able to attract more investors.

The author is vice-president of the Chinese Manufacturers' Association of Hong Kong.

(HK Edition 08/17/2012 page3)