For many mainland private enterprises, developing overseas market will be the main business strategy, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (TDC) said in a report Wednesday.

The TDC believes that Hong Kong should be treated as the prime place for those enterprises to get their goals, the report said.

The TDC conducted a survey to find out the response to the globalization and development strategy of Shandong and Jiangsu provinces private enterprises during December 2004 and February 2005. In the survey, 334 private enterprises which came from the two provinces were successfully interviewed.

According to TDC Chief Economist Leung Hoi-kwok, as entering the fourth year of membership of the World Trade Organization, most of mainland industrial protection measures will be eliminated soon. The pressure of increasing competitiveness for local private enterprises will be bigger and bigger.

Leung said that facing those pressure, some of local private enterprises are trying to promote its ability to access the world market. Hong Kong will be the right place for those companies to build up their international business network.

According to the survey, 67 percent respondents chose "sales to the world market" as its main development strategy. About 65 percent took "increasing its local market share" as the top priority, followed by "promoting the products and services competitiveness" and "strengthening the internal governance," which account for 63 percent and 48 percent, respectively.

The survey also found that capital, sales network of international market and management of talents are the top three weakness that mainland private enterprise face now, according to Leung.

Leung said Hong Kong is an international business center, and that it is the right place to meet those demand of private enterprises.

The survey also showed that most of those private enterprises hoped to use Hong Kong as a passageway for entering the world market, although some of those thought the operating cost in Hong Kong might be relatively high.

According to the survey, 15 percent of those respondents has set up their business in Hong Kong. There are about 60 percent of respondents are considering setting up their business in the coming two years.

Source: Xinhua