HK has potential to become e-commerce hub in Asia-Pacific

October 12, 2000

Hong Kong has witnessed tremendous progress in its development and adoption of e-commerce in the past two to three years. Internet banking, online stock trading and Internet shopping are becoming part of the community's daily lives.

And in one to two months' time, the Electronic Service Delivery scheme - Hong Kong's flagship Government-to-Citizen (G2C) and Government-to-Business (G2B) online service - will also be launched.

This was stated by the Secretary for Information Technology and Broadcasting, Mrs Carrie Yau, when addressing the Hong Kong-Canada Business Association luncheon in Vancouver today (October 12). Mrs Yau is currently leading a Hong Kong IT delegation to Canada to promote co-operation and exchange on IT between the two places.

She told the audience that Hong Kong was recognized internationally as one of the places with the best potential to develop e-business and had every potential of becoming the e-commerce hub for the Asia Pacific Region.

"The Economist Intelligence Unit ranks Hong Kong's e-business readiness as ninth in the world, and second in Asia. And, according to Forrester Research, Hong Kong will be among the lead group of economies in Asia-Pacific to register e-business hyper-growth, with the value of e-business surging to US$70 billion in 2004," she said.

She believed that Hong Kong's traditional strengths had contributed to the positive outlook for its e-business development. These include its excellent business environment, world-renowned physical infrastructure such as the airport and port facilities, open market economy, free flow of information, freedom of speech and the rule of law.

In particular, Hong Kong has developed an excellent and advanced telecommunications infrastructure with 100 per cent full broadband coverage for commercial buildings; over 90 per cent coverage for domestic households; 31 external connectivity operators are licensed or about to be licensed to operate satellite and cable facilities; 70 per cent cell phones penetration rate; and the introduction of 3G services next year. "All these have provided us with an excellent foundation for developing an information-based economy," Mrs Yau stressed.

Coupled with these, she continued, the Hong Kong Government had since January this year enacted the Electronic Transactions Ordinance to establish a clear legal framework for electronic transactions, and establish a public certification authority through the Hongkong Post to ensure local access to quality and high trust certification services.

Turning to the collaboration between companies of Canada and Hong Kong, Mrs Yau noted that many successful partnerships had taken place since the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on Co-operation in Information and Communications Technology between the two governments in 1998.

She cited the following examples: in e-commerce - the merger between Canada's Multiactive Software and Hong Kong's ABC Data & Telecom; in telecommunications - the partnership between Sunday of Hong Kong and Nortel of Canada for the development of General Packet Radio Service and the development of high-speed wireless data services; and in multimedia technologies - the partnership between CML Global Capital of Canada and CML Capital of Hong Kong for the production of content shows for in-flight entertainment.

"These and other partnerships clearly demonstrate the emergence of a winning business strategy by combining Canadian technology with Hong Kong's entrepreneurial spirit and marketing expertise," Mrs Yau said.

She believed that the imminent accession by China to the WTO would create enormous opportunities for the development of cross-border e-commerce to and from China. "With our excellent financial, telecommunications and transportation infrastructure, our expertise in doing business with the mainland of China and language proficiencies in both English and Chinese, Hong Kong is ideally placed to be the hub and fulfilment centre of these electronic transactions.

"Canadian technologies and expertise in IT and e-commerce will continue to be an important resource for Hong Kong in this development," Mrs Yau added.

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