CY Leung announces new cross-border trade committee

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying has announced that a new committee on cross-border trade and business co-operation will be set up to replace the Greater Pearl River Delta Business Council.

The council will be reorganised into the Committee on Economic and Trade Co-operation between Hong Kong and the Mainland to expand its geographical coverage, Leung said after an economic and trade conference in his first day in Chongqing yesterday.

He was leading a business delegation of 90 leaders from the commercial, industrial and professional sectors on a two-day trip to the directly controlled municipality. The delegation included representatives from the five chambers of commerce and the Trade Development Council.

Leung vowed to forge closer ties in bilateral trade with Chongqing when he met Mayor Huang Qifan . "We hope to alter the former passive and stagnated thinking of the government and be more 'appropriately proactive'," he said.

He added that he would try to satisfy the requests raised by the industrial and commercial sectors which aimed to expand their business in the mainland city.

He also hoped the Chongqing government could consider allowing corporations to directly employ Hong Kong's certified professionals.

Huang said he welcomed Hong Kong's financial corporations to expand their business in the municipality.

Chongqing party secretary Sun Zhengcai said he believed Hong Kong and Chongqing could complement each other although there was still a wide gap between the development levels of the two cities.

One of the delegates, Jimmy Ng Wing-ka, vice-president of the Chinese Manufacturers' Association of Hong Kong, said he hoped Chongqing would offer tax incentives to enterprises in the city so as to encourage investments.

Leung and his delegation will today visit the Liangjiang New Area and meet Hong Kong students and businessmen who live in Chongqing.

After Chongqing, Leung - who earlier said he would put effort into promoting the "homeland relationship" - will visit Guangxi in November and Fujian in January.