Xinhua, Milan :Hong Kong can offer the most efficient route to connect Italian small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs) to the vast business opportunities in Asia and the Chinese mainland, experts told a conference held here Thursday.”It was exactly 20 years ago when we opened our first store in Hong Kong. Today we have 23 stores there hiring on 350 people,” Carlo Mazzi, Chairperson and Executive Director of Prada Group fashion house, said in his address to the “Think Asia, Think Hong Kong” forum organized by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC).The conference conveyed the views of Hong Kong, the Chinese mainland and international business leaders and government officials, presenting ideas that enhanced the debate among more than 500 representatives of Italian companies from a wide spectrum of sectors such as fashion, food and IT. Prada Group’s decision to list in Hong Kong in 2011 was not an easy one, Mazzi went on saying.”But we though that Asia was our main market and would also be our growing market in the future. Four years later, I think we did make the right decision. I would definitely do it again,” he stressed. Some 40 percent of the group’s turnover, or around 1.5 billion euros (1.9 billion U.S. dollars), is made in Asia presently, Mazzi noted.Italy is Hong Kong’s fourth largest trading partner in the European Union (EU). Over the past five years, bilateral merchandise trade has grown by more than 7 percent per year, reaching nearly 7.3 billion euros in 2013, Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary John Tsang noted. The Italian business community is well represented in Hong Kong, with more than 150 companies ranging from leading international companies to SMEs and start-ups of all kinds, he said. Last year Hong Kong imported 3.1 million liters of Italian wine, accounting for more than 6 percent of Hong Kong’s total wine imports.”We are geographically, culturally and economically connected to the Chinese mainland, the world’s fastest-growing economy, with a rapidly expanding consumer market,” Tsang said. At the same time, he added, Hong Kong is an international business and financial services center as well as the world’s premier offshore Renminbi center.Under the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) special free trade pact, foreign investors can set up a company in Hong Kong, partner with, invest in or acquire service suppliers in Hong Kong to gain preferential access to the booming Chinese mainland market.But it is especially the “excellent quality of people and their high level of education” reflecting positively upon the “strong work ethic and intolerance to corruption” that makes the business environment great in Hong Kong, an American entrepreneur with 50 years of experience in global markets, James Thompson, said.Thompson, who is Chairman and Founder of Crown Worldwide Group, an international logistics and related services company headquartered in Hong Kong, lauded the same level playing field guaranteed for all companies in Hong Kong.Big or small, local or international, they are all treated equally, he pointed out.In fact the Italian government has realized the fundamental need to strengthen ties with the Asian markets and is particularly committed to improving its legal and institutional systems to make exchanges smoother, Marco Simoni, an Economic Advisor to Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, stressed at the conference.
