Finance chief says HK people can gain much from nation's blueprint

Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah on Thursday renewed his call to firms based in the city to seize opportunities presented by President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative.

Tsang was speaking at "Hong Kong and the World under the Belt and Road Initiative", a seminar hosted by the Central Policy Unit and the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The financial chief said the SAR government had begun to conduct field visits to countries along the Belt and Road to gain a better understanding of business opportunities in different economies.

Tsang encouraged the city's enterprises to make more effort to seize opportunities. This was because Hong Kong, with many skilled people in finance, law, logistics and other sectors, could benefit greatly from the blueprint, he added.

The Belt and Road Initiative, conceived by Xi in 2013, aims to strengthen trade ties and facilitate economic cooperation among 65 economies along the ancient silk route.

With China as the starting point, the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road will stretch across three continents from Asia to Europe and Africa.

The seminar gathered together some of the world's leading finance experts and scholars to analyze the strategic initiative and its enormous opportunities and challenges for China and the region.

Former vice-chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and renowned economist Lawrence Lau Juen-yee said the Belt and Road, as well as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank proposed along with the initiative, aimed at ensuring a win-win outcome for all.

Lau believed the initiative would help the mainland in several ways. Other than further opening up its economy, it would help the country make a productive investment of its surplus savings for the future. Moreover, the strategy would help foster a peaceful and friendly environment for the nation to continue to develop.

Echoing Lau's sentiments, Professor Peter Frankopan, director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research, said the opportunities and challenges the initiative entailed were enormous.

Frankopan noted that China would need to deal with instability in countries on the Belt and Road map as well as the ethnic tensions there.

stushadow@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 12/18/2015 page7)