Latest news with #SherardCowperColes
South China Morning Post
10-06-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Global Prosperity Summit 2025 highlights Hong Kong's ‘superconnector' role
Hong Kong is a global city and should not undersell itself or spend too much time worrying about its place in the world, not realising its extraordinary assets, according to Sherard Cowper-Coles, chairman of the China-Britain Business Council and a panellist at the Global Prosperity Summit 2025. Advertisement At the panel discussion on 'Hong Kong's Bridging Role in a Changing World', Cowper-Coles emphasised the need for Hong Kong to recognise its 'remarkable' position as an important trading centre, noting that 70 per cent of the foreign direct investment coming out of China went through the city, and 60 per cent of China's incoming investment came through it. The volume of trade that Britain conducted with Hong Kong was comparable to that with Japan, he added. 'I have always thought that Hong Kong undersells itself,' Cowper-Coles said, adding that 'you just have to come to Hong Kong to see for yourself that those who say Hong Kong is just another Chinese city are so wrong. It is a Chinese city, but it is special and different. It's also an international city, a Western city, a global city.' The former British diplomat went on to highlight the city's advantages, particularly its openness, connectivity and hospitality. 'Maximising the openness is the way you are going, and you must go,' he said. Panellist Sherard Cowper-Coles addresses the summit's 'Hong Kong's Bridging Role in a Changing World' session. Cowper-Coles' view was echoed by co-panellist Craig Allen, former president of the US-China Business Council and senior counsellor at The Cohen Group. 'Hong Kong's strengths are indeed undergirded by the economic openness and free trade spirit of this great city,' he said. 'It is that openness, it is that willingness to trade with everyone, that welcoming spirit to everyone, that gives Hong Kong its real distinctive strengths.
South China Morning Post
21-05-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
‘Special and different': Former envoys advocate for Hong Kong's unique global value
Hong Kong should approach the world with confidence rather than worry about its place in it, two former Western diplomats have said, with one suggesting that the city remaining 'special and different' from mainland China was in everyone's interests including the United States. The remarks were made at the Global Prosperity Summit on Wednesday, where the pair also discussed leveraging innovation within the Greater Bay Area and how Hong Kong should navigate the ongoing trade disputes between the US and China. The summit was co-organised by a local think tank, the Savantas Policy Institute, the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, and the European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. 'I've always thought that Hong Kong undersells itself,' said Sherard Cowper-Coles, who served as the head of Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Hong Kong Department from 1994 to 1997. Cowper-Coles, now chairman of the China-Britain Business Council, said that the city 'spends too much time worrying about its place in the world, not realising its extraordinary assets, which … in this time and this world make it exceptionally well placed.'
