Normal Life Back to Hong Kong

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, June 01, 2003

Normal Life Back to Hong Kong

"Normal life is now back to Hong Kong, (and) the key now is to restore business as soon as possible," said Norman Lyle, chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong.

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"Normal life is now back to Hong Kong, (and) the key now is to restore business as soon as possible," said Norman Lyle, chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong.

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) lifted the travel advisory against Hong Kong, revitalizing Hong Kong has been a hot topic. Norman said it's important to persuade people to go back to normal economic activities, and tell the international community the exact conditions of Hong Kong.

"I'd like to say, 'It's safe now to come to Hong Kong, and please, if you have plans of business in Hong Kong, come back here immediately.'"

For tourism, Norman said he thinks it will take longer time to have international tourists come back to Hong Kong, because a lot of people have already made their travel plans or holiday plans for this summer.

��"But we still need to market Hong Kong, and I think the tourismfrom the Chinese mainland will pick up faster," he said.

He said that during the SARS period, the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong did not place any restrictions on travel to keep business relatively normal.

"The biggest difficulty for us was arranging meeting outside Hong Kong. It's quite difficult to persuade people to let you go to their offices from SARS effected areas, and it's quite difficult to set up meeting."

��"I hope it has changed since the lifting of the travel advisory against Hong Kong," Norman said.

The chairman said the last two and half months had been very difficult for Hong Kong. "But I must say that it has demonstrated that we've got very professional and dedicated medical system in Hong Kong, and the medical workers have done a tremendous job to contain the killer virus."

"I personally feel the great respect for their professionalismin dealing with this issue. Some medical workers were infected anda number of them have unfortunately passed away. They are very very recommendable."

He said,"It's very much in our interests that Hong Kong keepsto be a prosperous place to work and to live. We have a number of crises in the last five years. We had the Asian crisis in 1998, which has a grave impact on Hong Kong, and most recently, the SARSoutbreak, which had a negative impact on the economy, because we had a much reduced travel of business to Hong Kong. So it's important for people like myself who represents the British business community here to promote Hong Kong."

Norman said he hopes that Hong Kong can move quickly to the next stage, which is to remove it from the list of the affected area.

"I think we need continue to be vigilant. We should not be complacent, because the objective is to eradicate the SARS virus not just from Hong Kong, but the Chinese mainland and the rest of the world," he said.

"Clearly there are areas that need to improve and we have seen the government has set up a city cleaning group to review the public health issues in Hong Kong," he said.

"We should use the shock that we've had during the SARS outbreak period to persuade people of Hong Kong that environment is very important and we have the responsibility have clean streets, clean residents, and clean water,"he added.

Norman has been in Hong Kong for six years. He came here in 1997 to work as the Group Financial Director of the Jardine Matheson, which has a long association with Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland.

"I came to Hong Kong in the month before its handover from the UK, and many of my friends in the UK said to me, 'I don't understand why you will go to Hong Kong at this moment?'"

"My view was that was a positive activity, and it would work. Well, the last seven years have demonstrated that politically the handover was quite successful for Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland. There clearly are economically issues in economic side. We had the financial crisis in 1998 and we had the global economicslowdown over the last 18 months. That left a grave impact on HongKong, but it would have happened no matter whether Hong Kong had remained under the British rule or moved back into the Chinese mainland."

"And in fact, Hong Kong can benefit from'One country, two systems' and from the very rapid economic growth in the Chinese mainland."

"We can see that borders between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland are getting more and more busy with nearly 100 million people going across the border last year."

Regarding Hong Kong's integration with the Chinese mainland, Norman said, "we got to understand that 'we live together, and we develop together."

"Hong Kong is a marvelous harbor. It's part of China, which is growing very rapidly and Hong Kong has benefited with that. Hong Kong is a natural hub for people to do business in the Chinese mainland as well as with other areas of Asia. So I'm quite positive with Hong Kong's economic future," he said.

He said the Chinese mainland, in particular the Southern China,is a manufacturing base, and the free movement of people and goods between Hong Kong and the mainland is very important.

"I think it's good to encourage people from the Chinese mainland to visit Hong Kong. They can see the economic development here and learn a lot from here."

"I think to upgrade the cooperation between Hong Kong and Guangdong province is very important, especially after we have experienced together the SARS outbreak. I think there must be much closer working of government officials, universities and researchers, so we can improve the public health of the whole area," said Norman.

He said one area that has not made enough improvement is the environment.

"Please look out from my window now, you can see it's very hazy.A lot of haze is coming from the manufacturing sides."

"We have to improve that even though it will take rather long time. We should reach understanding that improving the environmentis very important for the people's living and the economic development," he said.

"I would also hope the Chinese mainland will continue to relax regulations to allow companies to come to Hong Kong for direct market competition, not only the manufacturing sector, but also the service activities, and the banking services."

"I know it will take some time for this to happen. But I think it's very important because the Chinese mainland will benefit fromthat as well," he said.

He said integration is important and in the mean time, "we mustkeep in our mind that Hong Kong is an international city, we must keep its international flavor."

Norman said Hong Kong has a long history of being an entrepreneur center. The government has been working hard and the prosperity of Hong Kong depends on its people.

He said Hong Kong people got to recognize that they should haveservice mentality. They should try to grasp language skills of English, Cantonese and Putonghua. They should have IT skills, because information technology is critical in the modern world.

As to rebuilding Hong Kong when SARS is fading away, Norman said, "We're very much involved in the re-launching activities in Hong Kong, and I think we will be measured and we don't want to beover-marketed, and we also don't want to see the relapse of the disease."

"We are now moving from the responding stage into the reassuring state, to reassure overseas people that it's safe to come to Hong Kong, to reassure Hong Kong people that it's time to go back to the restaurant and go to cinema, to go back to normal lives. "

"Then we will move on to the more active re-launching stage, during which we will be reinforcing the promotion of Hong Kong, toencourage people to go back to normal lives. Currently, the key isto mobilize the Hong Kong people."

"We are now continuing updating the information to the international business community. We are telling them that normal life is back to Hong Kong and please come back to Hong Kong to rearrange your business."

He said that in addition, the British Chamber of Commerce is planning a big event in September or early October. The slogan of it probably will be "Hong Kong, the place to get business done."

Norman said his life is current relatively normal."I have not stopped business traveling during this epidemic, and now I do not wear the face mask outside because I want to demonstrate that it' s all right to live in Hong Kong without the mask."

"My daughter lives in Hong Kong and she is going to have a babynext month. Her friends said she should go to London to have the baby but she said no and she will stay in Hong Kong because she does not want to be separated from her husband," the happy father said.

"She also went to cinema last Friday night. I went to the cinema as well and I found that it was full, which makes me believe that life here is getting back to normal," he said.

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