Hyderabad explores business opportunities in Hong Kong via HKTDC

The Dollar Business Bureau

Hong Kong Trade Development Centre (HKTDC), a facilitator of international trade via Hong Kong, organised a seminar in collaboration with The Federation of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry, in Hyderabad, on March 9, 2017.

The seminar provided an opportunity to 'explore business through Hong Kong'. Prominent industrialists, entrepreneurs, and members of FICCI from Hyderabad were seated in the audience.

India and Hong Kong have a fairly healthy exchange of trade. Hong Kong stood as India's seventh largest trading partner in 2015-16, with a total trade of $18 billion. In the same period, $12 billion worth exports were made to Hong-Kong. The country makes for 4.6% of India's overall exports. Pearls, precious and semi-precious stones, leather and electronical machinery, cotton, fish, organic chemicals, optical and medical instruments, machinery articles for apparel and plastics are some of the main product categories in which the India - Hong Kong trade flourishes. On the other side, India is Hong Kong's fourth largest export destination, after China, USA and Japan.

HSBC, the global bank based in Hong Kong, has a well established presence in India. In addition to that, there are 11 Indian public sector banks and 3 private sector banks that have branches in Hong Kong. India has the 16^th largest FDI equity inflows from HK, which stood at $1.976 billion in April-September 2016.

Sunny Chau, Director of Bangkok branch, HKTDC, spoke of Hyderabad's booming entrepreneurship and innovation environment. He applauded the contribution of Hyderabad's cutting-edge IT and medical industry to the 'Make in India' initiative.

"Hong Kong is among the economies that have achieved a 7% growth for 25 years consecutively, as identified by the World Bank along with other countries like China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and Thailand," he said, pitching business growth opportunities in Hong Kong.

Attributing the high and consistent growth of the East-Asian economies to their ability to adopt new technologies from advanced economies, he said, "We're growing faster because economies can learn faster than they can invent." In the same context, Chau spoke about HKTDC's ICT expo, which corrals the world's best technology sellers under one roof.

"90% of our imports from India comprises jewellery," he said in his concluding remarks, emphasizing India's untapped export potential in other product categories like technology.

Rajesh Bhagat, HKTDC's Mumbai-based consultant, pitched Hong Kong as 'Asia's central business district'. "HK is one of the few neutral economies in the world that encourage both imports and exports. We help businesses all over the world use Hong Kong as a medium to connect with buyers and sellers not only in Hong Kong and China, but anywhere on the globe," he said, describing HKTDC's functionality.

"We have a unique model for trade promotion which includes an online marketplace, mobile applications and a wealth of information in the form of product and research magazines," he added.

HKTDC hosts around 30 world-class trade fairs in different product categories annually, making the body the largest organiser of international trade fairs in Hong Kong, and the second largest such entity in Asia. Eleven of its fairs are the largest marketplace in the concerned product category. 

"From India, more than 30,000 individual buyers and over 800 companies are participants of HKTDC trade fairs," Bhagat said, about India's involvement.

The seminar provided other valuable information about the business match-making activities of HKTDC, coupled with its ability to generate buyer enquiries for its members from an integrated world marketplace, that it has built over five decades.