The opening of a prestigious international legal body's overseas branch in Hong Kong today can be considered "a gift" from Beijing to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the end of colonial rule, a Foreign Ministry official said.
Huang Huikang, director general of the Foreign Ministry's Department of Treaty and Law, told a conference at City University yesterday that Beijing pulled out all diplomatic stops to make sure the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) chose to open an office in Hong Kong.
The HCCH is the world's foremost organisation for cross-border co-operation in civil and commercial legal matters. China is a member and representatives from Hong Kong take part in the Hague Conference as members of the China delegation.
Huang said the central government and the city worked together to bring the office to Hong Kong, HCCH's first in the Asia-Pacific region and its second outside the Netherlands.
Lobbying to bring the office to Hong Kong started in 2009 and the then-secretary for justice Wong Yan-lung told media in April that he had also lobbied for support for the office on visits late last year to Europe, South Korea and Japan.
Huang said the Hong Kong branch would benefit mainland China and Hong Kong's future as an international shipping, trading and financial centre.