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Following is the speech by the Chief Executive, Mr C Y Leung, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in Manila, the Philippines, today (November 17):
We believe firmly in the further expansion of the economies in the APEC zone. I don't think we need to sort of talk about the virtues or the "whys" of promoting free trade. We don't even need to talk about what free trade is. Both Hong Kong and New Zealand, and there are many other economies out there but the two economies are represented on this platform, have proved the virtues and the "whys" of promoting free trade.
Going forward, what I think we need to do is to seriously look at "hows". I think the Doha round has not been successful. We need to look at the many plurilateral and bilateral free trade arrangements between and among the economies in this region and in other parts of the world too. But I think while we, as the freest economy in the world - we've been ranked the freest economy in the world for 20 years in a row - we believe that we want to be a party to these agreements and, making a bold statement, a general statement, we want to be a party to these bilateral and plurilateral agreements. And at the same time I think we want to be careful not to end up - for the world, not for Hong Kong itself - in the situation where some of these agreements actually make things rather complicated and confusing for enterprises, particularly small and medium enterprises that prevail in many parts of this region's economy, including Hong Kong.
I said at the beginning that I firmly believe, and have faith and confidence, in this region's economy because I think, over the last 10, 20 years, if you look at the volume of trade that's going on in this region, and one example is the volume of trade between Hong Kong and the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries, of which the Philippines is a part. The ASEAN countries are now the second largest partner of Hong Kong's in the space of merchandise trade, only after the Mainland of China. It's now replaced the United States and the European Union as our second largest trading partner in merchandise.
The economies in this region have been growing quite handsomely and we believe in further growth in the years ahead, particularly as China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative is being rolled out. And we don't need to look at a map of the world to realise Hong Kong is very much the gateway of that "Belt and Road" network. And so with that in mind, again speaking from where I am, speaking for Hong Kong, I think there is all the more reason for us to promote free trade amongst the "Belt and Road" economies, if not other economies in the world too.
Ends/Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Issued at HKT 19:30
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