The Hong Kong business community is stepping up pressure on mainland authorities to show leniency in their treatment of export processing industries.
The Federation of Hong Kong Industries (FHKI) and Chinese Manufacturers Association of Hong Kong will put forward proposals to ease their difficulties to Guangdong vice-governor Tang Bingquan today.
More than 70 per cent of the Hong Kong export processing industries operating in the mainland said in an FHKI-conducted survey that they were being financially strained by month-old measures that required them to pay security deposits for the import of restricted raw materials.
About 37.5 per cent of respondents called for the deposits to be scrapped.
FHKI chairman Henry Tang Ying-yen said they would propose a postponement of the new measures and the acceptance of machinery as security for loans for the payment of security deposits in addition to real properties.
'Although the State Council has accepted real properties as security, only a few companies could benefit as the majority of the processing industries rent rather than own properties,' Mr Tang said.
