Businessman gives up his Canadian passport
Entrepreneur Allan Zeman has renounced his Canadian citizenship and has become a naturalised Chinese citizen.
Mr Zeman, who is known as the 'father' of the Lan Kwai Fong entertainment district and is also chairman of Ocean Park, said he decided to become a naturalised Chinese because he had lived and worked in Hong Kong for 38 years and always considered the city his home.
He said he filed his application to surrender his Canadian passport as early as the end of last year, two months before a row erupted over the foreign citizenship of newly appointed undersecretaries and political assistants, adding that it was right that the five undersecretaries renounced their foreign nationality eventually.
'I think that if you are really working for the government, on behalf of the government, on behalf of Hong Kong citizens, you should have a local passport.'
Mr Zeman said the idea of obtaining Chinese nationality had been a quick decision to make and it came to him after he campaigned for former security secretary Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee in the Legislative Council by-election last year.
'It brought me into ... really the heart of politics in Hong Kong,' he said. 'It's time to really solidify my beliefs, and I really want to be a Hong Kong citizen. I want to be a local, a real local.'