Hong Kong Government Reaffirms Commitment To E-Commerce

Mary Swire, Tax-news.com, Hong Kong

19 February 2001

Whilst some Hong Kong observers have recently been voicing concerns that the SAR's current taxation regime does not go hand in hand with the growth of e-commerce, the Hong Kong government has nevertheless been relentlessly pursuing the development of e-business in the jurisdiction. Speaking at an e-commerce seminar last week, the Director of Information Technology Services, Mr Lau Kam-hung, stated: 'It is the policy of the Government to create an environment conducive to the adoption of e-commerce by the business sector to help Hong Kong retain its competitive edge and to drive its overall economic expansion.'

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit in London, Hong Kong ranks ninth globally and second in Asia for its readiness for the adoption of e-commerce. Indeed, Hong Kong has implemented the "Digital 21" Information Technology Strategy and already has a highly-developed infrastructure to support it, yet the government still wants to improve on its telecommunications infrastrucutre.

Mr Lau said: 'The Government is dedicated to building an open and common infrastructure to enable the conduct of e-commerce in a safe and secure environment, and to enable e-commerce to flourish in Hong Kong.' He noted that in the next few years, industry anticipated that about HK$13bn would be invested in Hong Kong's telecommunications infrastructure, further enhancing the SAR's capability to develop into a telecommunications hub in Asia.

Besides the excellent telecommunications infrastructure, the government has introduced a legal framework to provide a secure environment for e-commerce in Hong Kong through the January 2000 enactment of the Electronic Transactions Ordinance.

As Chinese is the mother tongue of the majority of the Hong Kong people, the government has also established a common Chinese language interface by adopting the international ISO 10646 standard for electronic communication and data exchange of Chinese among government, businesses and individuals.

Apart from establishing the technological infrastructure for e-commerce, the government itself has made much headway in getting its own services online. One of the key developments has been the Electronic Service Delivery (ESD) Scheme, formally launched in January, which is a flagship site via which the public can obtain a wide range of government services online. The information infrastructure developed for the ESD is also going to be available for use by the private sector for the conduct of e-commerce.

Such initiatives form part of the Hong Kong government's overall commitment to the development of e-commerce, which also includes organising regular events to publicise the benefits of e-commerce for small and medium-sized enterprises and individuals.

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