The Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC) and Tradelink Electronic Document Services have formed an alliance to promote electronic commerce in Hong Kong.
Tradelink, 48 per cent owned by the government, will serve as the 'electronic gateway' to government. It was founded in 1988 to research such possibilities.
The council will promote Tradelink services to Hong Kong companies and provide a dedicated training facility.
Council executive director S K Chan said: 'We are entering a period of time-based competition.
'An essential productivity strategy of HKPC is to provide technical assistance to reduce the 'time-to-market' [factor]. Electronic commerce plays a key role in this strategy.' Tradelink spokesman Francoise Pakianathan said processing of textile licences would drop from four days to one.
HKPC and Tradelink will initially partner on four activities - seminars; joint training courses focused on companies in the textile and garment trade; an 'Electronic Commerce Pavilion' at HKPC's 1996 Software Exhibition in December; and HKPC testing and evaluation of EDI software products for Tradelink's Software Quality Assurance programme.
