The Greater Pearl River Delta, the hot spot for foreign investment in China, is taking its opportunities on the road and attracting UK investors at a promotional event in London.

As of yesterday morning, British time, 201 investment projects had been signed, involving a total sum of US$2.62 billion. The contracted sum for import and export transactions came to US$2.14 billion, an insider told China Daily.

One of the most important large-scale investment promotion events in Europe this year, "Hong Kong - Guangdong Business Seminar in London 2004," took place in London on Tuesday. The seminar was jointly organized by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) and Guangdong provincial government. Governor Huang Huahua and SAR Chief Secretary for Administration Donald Tsang led the delegations and delivered keynote speeches.

The seminar focused on the business opportunities brought by the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) and future prospects in Hong Kong and Guangdong for the UK and other European companies.

The seminar was moderated by the Chief Executive of UK Trade and Investment, Sir Stephen Brown. The UK Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, and the Ambassador of the PRC to the UK, Zha Peixin, were also in attendance. Top executives from prominent UK companies, including Jean Baptiste-Renard, group vice-president of British Petroleum and Norman Lyle, group finance director of Jardine Matheson, shared their investment experiences with the local business community.

More than 1,000 business executives from the UK and other European companies attended and demonstrated strong interest in the Greater Pearl River Delta (PRD) region, which consists of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, one of the fastest growing regions of the fastest growing large economy in the world.

In his speech, Governor Huang stated that Guangdong has become one of the regions in China bestowed with the most dynamic market and the most well-developed foreign trade and is a most attractive place for investment. It boasts many advantages such as a huge economy, a high level of internationalization, strong industrial supporting capabilities, huge market capacity and superb investment environment.

As one of the important members of the Greater PRD and of the Pan PRD, which includes nine neighboring provinces and autonomous regions as well as Hong Kong and Macao, Guangdong provides huge room for development and numerous business opportunities for Europeans in industrial and commercial circles.

Huang emphasized that Guangdong enjoys good partnerships with the EU and the UK. The EU is one of the one most important trading partners and investment sources of Guangdong, while the UK is the second largest trading partner of Guangdong among the EU countries, and its direct investment in Guangdong tops the EU.

Guangdong welcomes international companies and consortium in sectors such as electronic information, automobiles, petrochemical, machinery manufacturing and modern servicing, so that Guangdong may accelerate its pace to become one of the most important manufacturing bases in the world.

In his speech, Tsang presented the many advantages of Hong Kong as a financial center, and discussed why investors from the UK and other countries chose to invest there. He pointed out that Britain is HK's largest overseas investor. As of June, 2004, there were over 300 regional headquarters or offices of British companies in the city.

For many international companies, the best way to enter the China market is to set up manufacturing in the PRD while running management, finance and distribution out of Hong Kong, said Tsang.

Invest Hong Kong and Guangdong Department of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, the investment promotion agency of the HK SAR government and Guangdong Province respectively, are the organizers of the event.

At the seminar, Guangdong government introduced 155 key investment projects and organized a contract signing ceremony for some of them. Twenty-one Guangdong cities participated in the event.

(China Daily October 28, 2004)