Hong Kong

Hong Kong offers an unusually stable and efficient business environment with the modern infrastructure and telecommunications that could be expected of the world’s 9th largest economy. The territory’s economy could rightly be described as the most laissez faire economy in the world. The government’s policy is strictly non-interventionist.

Government controls and disclosure requirements on businesses are minimal, except for public limited companies. There are only minimal capitalization requirements for private companies and financial statements need not be filed if a company incorporates as a wholly-owned subsidiary in Hong Kong. Six month visas are normally granted to intending residents with employment, and holders of dependant visas (like spouses and children) are allowed to accept employment with no special consents. Hong Kong has no compulsory union membership and copyright laws essentially follow those of the United Kingdom, with Hong Kong a party to the Paris Convention.

Although a special administrative region of China the territory is a British common law jurisdiction which recognizes the concept of a trust. British and Hong Kong company and trust law are virtually identical and the tight secrecy, minimal corporate disclosure and loose administrative requirements that characterize some offshore island common law jurisdictions either do not apply or have little significance in the territory. In any event Hong Kong does not consider itself an offshore center in the traditional sense of the word. (For further information on companies and trusts see Forms of Company.)

Bankers, accountants, lawyers, and other professionals who serve multinational firms have thrived in a community of local firms that has become increasingly transnational since the opening of the Mainland to foreign trade and investment in the late 1970s. This deep-rooted local familiarity with the needs of international business makes Hong Kong an easy place in which to find joint-venture partners and to find expatriate professionals. Local staff can easily be recruited from local companies which have a ready familiarity with the dispersed operating needs of a multinational business.

Hong Kong is unsurpassed in the extent to which it brings local and overseas firms together into a single business community. The constant interaction between thousands of overseas firms and local businesses in a supercharged business environment generates growth opportunities for both sides in setting up international networks, entering new lines of business, finding new sources of supply and new markets and linking up with business partners from Hong Kong, China and elsewhere. As one local business executive observed: “For multinational firms which seek out and thrive from interaction with the local environment and local firms, Hong Kong is the Asian location without par.”