Hong Kong Gov’t To Hire Official To Lure European Family Offices
HONG KONG – The Chinese territory’s government is recruiting an official who will be posted in Europe, whose job is to encourage family offices in the continent to invest in Hong Kong or within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), reported The South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Sunday (17 July, SGT).
In particular, the official will be assigned in Brussels, the administrative centre of the European Union (EU), to persuade European family offices to invest in Hong Kong and utilise it as a beachhead into the Greater Bay Area.
This represents the Chinese territory’s latest effort to promote Hong Kong as a hub for family offices, an objective mentioned by Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po in his budget speech in 2021.
“Family offices here in Europe have a great interest in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area,” Eddie Cheung, the head of the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office in Brussels told SCMP.
Cheung, who has been preoccupied hosting events for the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China, revealed that he has been contacted by many affluent families in the European Union who are keen to invest in the city.
“The business contacts we have met during the many handover events are realistic and they just want to know more about the business opportunities in China, particularly the Greater Bay Area,” he noted, adding that Hong Kong is the appropriate location for them to get to know more about the business environment in mainland China.
At present, the new official is going through the hiring procedure and will report for duty in Autumn, Cheung shared.
The new employee will be under Hong Kong’s Economic Trade Office in Brussels and will be in charge of promotional work in Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland and other EU nations to lure family offices to invest or set up a presence in Hong Kong.
“Family offices tend to be conservative and seek to diversify risk. Hong Kong’s attractiveness is that it is a pivotal centre for family offices’ diversification strategy to gain exposure into assets in mainland China and Asia,” added Cheung.
