Hong Kong’s biggest firms take out advert calling for end to protests, with Swire and Cathay Pacific among signatories
- In the biggest campaign of its kind so far, 20 companies and five chambers of commerce published a letter calling for calm in eight Chinese-language newspapers
- The move came ahead of district council elections on Sunday which many fear could spark further angry clashes
Twenty of the biggest and best known companies in Hong Kong took out an advertisement on Friday in eight major Chinese-language newspapers calling for an end to the violence that has plagued the city for almost six months.
The firms, plus five chambers of commerce representing every major business sector, described the scenes of destruction in Hong Kong as “heartbreaking” in the full-page advert that took the form of an open letter to Hongkongers.
Their appeal for calm, the biggest so far in terms of the number of companies and newspapers involved, came ahead of district council elections on Sunday, which many fear could spark further angry clashes.
Among the signatories were Hong Kong’s major property developers including CK Asset Holdings, owned by the city’s richest man Li Ka-shing; Henderson Land Development; Sun Hung Kai Properties; Sino Land; Great Eagle Holdings; and New World Development.
It also included office and shopping mall landlords such as Hongkong Land, Swire Properties and Wharf Holding as well as the city’s airline, Cathay Pacific, and Sing Tao News Corporation, which runs the Sing Tao Daily News, one of the newspapers that carried the advert.
The advertisement ran on Friday in the Oriental Daily News, Sing Tao Daily, Ming Poa, Hong Kong Economic Times, Hong Kong Economic Journal, Wen Wei Po, Ta Kung Pao and the Hong Kong Commercial Daily.