The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO) held a Chinese New Year reception at the Westin Palace Hotel in Madrid on 28 January 2009. The reception was co-hosted by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council.

This was the second of 11 events the HKETO will be hosting in major cities around Europe in January and February  to celebrate the start of the Year of the Ox.

Addressing some 100 guests from the political, economic and academic sectors as well as media representatives, Hong Kong's Special Representative for Economic and Trade Affairs to the European Communities, Miss Mary Chow, said that in the year ahead, the HKSAR Government would continue to focus all its efforts on maintaining financial stability and reinforcing Hong  Kong's reputation as a great place to do business in Asia.

Miss Chow noted that steps taken since the Asian financial crisis a few years ago, to shore up Hong Kong's financial markets through a more effective and transparent regulatory system and to improve the risk management of our banks, had helped to provide a solid basis to weather the current downturn.

She said the HKSAR Government had acted quickly to lessen the impact of the global financial crisis.  These included, inter alia, measures to help create more than 60,000 job opportunities this year, and the creation of a Contingent Bank Capital Facility to make available additional capital to banks should they require it.

All these measures would help regain confidence and restore the vigour of the Hong Kong economy once their effects would have filetered through, she added.

Co-operation with Spain on wine-related business

Early last year Hong Kong removed all duty on wine and beer, with the ambition of enhancing its position as a wine trading and distribution hub in Asia. 

This had a huge effect in boosting imports, trade and sales.  Spain is one of the biggest wine exporters to Hong Kong and in the first five months after the duty was lifted, wine imports increased in value by 49% compared to the previous year.

"We were delighted therefore, at the end of October, to sign Memorandum of Understanding with Spain on Co-operation in Wine-related Business," Miss Chow said.

"The agreement provides for Hong Kong and Spain to work together to promote trading in wine and related food items like tapas, ham and cheese. It includes holding wine-related international meetings or events in Hong Kong, investment promotion, education and manpower training, promotion of wine-related tourism and wine culture, as well as customs co-operation against counterfeit wine.  So we have lots of exciting joint projects coming up in the year ahead".