How the Fair trade movement is picking up steam in Hong Kong

Anthony Chiu Sin-wing has big ambitions for 2017, and they involve not the election of the next chief executive but having Hong Kong designated as a fair trade city.

It has already met three of five criteria; there's a choice of free trade products readily available from retailers, items are used at workplaces and community organisations, including schools, and the subject attracts popular support and media coverage.

The remaining conditions are to set up a steering panel to ensure continued commitment, and persuading the Legislative Council to adopt a resolution supporting the cause. The latter may prove to be a hurdle, but Chiu is hopeful. "We have the chief executive election that year so it may not be so easy to do this, but it's reachable."

Chiu is the founder of Fair Circle, a social enterprise that sells fair trade products and educates people about the concept: helping marginalised communities in poor countries by eliminating middlemen and paying them a fair price for their products, typically agricultural produce or handicrafts.

Anti-poverty charity Oxfam introduced the movement to Hong Kong in 2002 and a number of the fair trade groups have since sprung up, including the Fair Trade Hong Kong Foundation, which is authorised to monitor the certification of fair trade items in Hong Kong, Macau and the mainland.

Although Fair Circle started more than 10 years ago, it only began gaining momentum in the past two years. Chiu estimates the venture drew up to 50,000 customers in the past eight years, half of them over the past year. Combined with other fair trade groups, he believes well over 100,000 people bought at least one fair trade product last year - about 1.3 per cent of the population.

But while people are more accepting of the idea of fair trade, Chiu says the groups must now mobilise consumers to get to the next stage of actually practising it.