On the fourth plenary meeting of the third session of the 10th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) held on March 10, Ms. CHIANG Lai-wan, chairwoman of Board of Directors of Hong Kong-based C&L Group, said in her speech that there is comparatively strong complementarity between the resources and advantages of the middle part areas of the mainland and the economy of Hong Kong. Hong Kong should seize the opportunity to have in-depth cooperation with the middle-part provinces in areas of reforming the state-owned enterprises, developing service industry, and expanding foreign trade.

Because of this, she has put forward four suggestions:

Firstly take an active part in the reform of the state-owned enterprises by giving Hong Kong's financing function into a full play. Hong Kong is an ideal place for raising international funds. More than 3,600 transnational corporations have established their headquarters or offices in Hong Kong. In addition the biggest banks of the world numbering 71 have operated in Hong Kong. All the provinces in the middle part of the mainland can choose a batch of excellent enterprises with economic benefits to cooperate with overseas companies in diversified ways of promotion and listing in Hong Kong by using Hong Kong as a platform.

Secondly engage in all-round cooperation in the area of service industry by bringing Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) into full play. The tertiary industry accounts for 86 per cent of Hong Kong's economy with mature service experiences while the tertiary industry in the middle-part provinces is not well developed. With CEPA both sides can develop all-round cooperation in the tertiary industry.

Thirdly improve the foreign-oriented economy in the middle-part areas by bringing Hong Kong's port into a full play. She suggested two areas of the trade cooperation between the middle areas and Hong Kong: one is the area of cooperation in agricultural products and traditional Chinese medicine. She suggests the sue of Hong Kong's marketing network to export the agricultural products and prepared Chinese medicine produced in the middle-part areas to the world market. And another area is the trade involving the processing of supplied raw materials, which can more closely link the trade enterprises in Hong Kong with the relevant manufacturing enterprises in the middle-part areas.

Finally establish long-term and stable corporative relations by giving a mechanism into full play. It is suggested to set up a set of an effective cooperative mechanism in reference of "nine plus two'' model, which is a cooperative area including nine inland provinces and two special administrative regions namely Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Sichuan and Guizhou, Yunnan provinces as well as Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions.

By People's Daily Online