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Speech by the Hon. David Emerson, Federal Industry Minister at the HKCBA Canada-Hong Kong Business Forum on May 30 at the Ottawa Congress Centre:
The Hong Kong-Canada Business Association, as most of you know, has been in action for... gee, over 20 years, since 1983. And I have to say I've got a long history myself from all of my years in government and business in British Columbia. So I've been part of and seen the Hong Kong-Canada Business Association in action for much of those 20-plus years. But I do want to talk a little bit about some of the similarities between Hong Kong and Canada, because we really do have an awful lot in common with Hong Kong. The nature of our economy, the circumstances we face, and indeed the history over the last 20, 30 years in Canada has evolved very much in a way that is intertwined with the evolution of Hong Kong history in the last 30 years. If you look at Canada and Hong Kong, we're both what I call small, open economies, small trading economies. Canada, less than the population of California on a land area larger than the continental United States, heavily dependent on trade, very, very heavily dependent on trade with the United States. Hong Kong, something like seven million people sitting right next door to an enormous market, has evolved from stewardship under the United Kingdom to being part of China, [and is also] highly trade dependent. We're both economies that depend for our wealth creation, for our life blood, on trade. And trade is what defines Hong Kong in much the same way that trade is what has defined Canada over the last hundred years or so. But there are other similarities that are worth noting, and those include the fact that Canada, sitting right next door to the United States, is essentially in the same bedroom as the elephant, the proverbial elephant. And it's created a little bit of a split personality for Canada, because while we've had tremendous economic opportunities and realized enormous employment and wealth creation from our relationship with the United States, it's always been a subject of anxiety and fear and concern over our history. And so you have this schizophrenic relationship with our best friend and trading partner to the south, but it's led Canada to want to ensure that we do two things. One is to make sure that the relationship is sound and strong and stable, but it's also to ensure that we don't have all of our eggs in the same basket. And that is why Canada over the years has put an awful lot of focus, and will continue to put a lot of focus, on developing trade and investment relationships with other markets, meaning other markets than the United States. The same is true, I think, of Hong Kong. They've evolved into a very tightly integrated economy with China. The evolution is history. We all know the nature of that evolution. It's one of opportunity, and it's one where people have anxieties and feel some sense of risk. And that in a way defines much of the last 20 years' or 30 years' relationships with Canada because, as 1997 approached, we saw in Canada an enormous period where Hong Kong people migrated in large numbers to Canada. And we now have, as most of you know, a very, very large Chinese population in Canada, many of whom came to Canada from Hong Kong, many of whom are back in Hong Kong today, having both a Canadian citizenship and an ability to work in Hong Kong and in China. And so that has been very much a characteristic of the evolution of our relationship. And when I go back to the early 1980s, when we in Canada began to think of ourselves as a gateway to North America and we developed relationships with people in Hong Kong, it became clear that both Hong Kong and Canada had that in common as well. We both saw ourselves as gateway economies: Hong Kong as a gateway to China and Southeast Asia, Canada as a gateway to North America. And that also became a very important defining feature of our relationship. Indeed, I recall in the early 1980s when Peter Such, who was then the CEO of Cathay Pacific Airways, used to come to Vancouver. We had many discussions and engaged in think tanks in both Vancouver and Hong Kong, where what we really did was focus on the opportunity for Vancouver to become a gateway much like Hong Kong has become in that part of the world. And it was Peter Such and Cathay Pacific that really started us thinking about the logistical potential of Canada, and particularly the west coast of Canada, as a gateway to the Asia Pacific region. And we began to define some of those transportation efficiencies and give them shape and form through the development of our ports, and the development of Vancouver International Airport is very much a product of that thinking about the potential to become an Asia-Pacific gateway. And Peter Such and other business people in the marine side in Hong Kong and other business people in Hong Kong were very much involved in the early development of Vancouver, both the port and the airport, and played a major role in beginning to shape what has now become a very successful gateway transportation complex in the Vancouver area. Now we've seen that evolve to another level with the recent initiatives at the Port of Prince Rupert, the enormous demand for container capacity on the west coast of North America. Now we're seeing a whole new gateway corridor develop across the northwest part of British Columbia, which will again be a very important part of the supply chain potential between North America, Hong Kong and China as we go forward. Even in the development of the airports we worked together. The development and the construction of Vancouver was done very much in tandem with the construction and development of the new Hong Kong airport. Indeed, a Canadian was one of the first managers when they were building the new Hong Kong airport, and before the hand-over from the old to the new. And so we do have a deep, strong, meaningful relationship in terms of trade, transportation and investment. And I think now we've got an opportunity to take the relationship to a whole other level. I think now we recognize here in Canada, and I know they recognize in Hong Kong, that the relationship with Goliath next door is much more an opportunity than a threat. And we're all beginning to realize that if we manage that relationship in a constructive way, if we do the right things in policy terms, if we put the right infrastructure in place, we can use that proximity and that relationship to really develop a powerful economic future and a powerful economic engine, whether you're in Hong Kong or in Canada. And for Canadians looking at China, I think you'll probably hear today - if you don't, you should - that we are behind in our relationship with China. We've been a bit skittish. Canadian businesses may have had it too good with the North American market next door, but we are not as aggressive, we're not as deeply involved with China, as we need to be. China is going to become one of the world's top economies in a few short years, and developing and evolving rapidly. Their institutional infrastructure is developing and evolving rapidly. The economy in all respects is becoming a truly modern industrial dynamo, and it's going to be a major player in the world, and we have to recognize that. But one of the reasons that Canadian businesses have been a little bit nervous and tentative about getting into China is the anxieties about how you do business in China, about the legal system in China, about how you deal with financial markets, how you deal with business contracts. We're neophytes when it comes to doing business in China, although there are a lot of successful Canadian companies doing well there today. There's going to be a lot more going forward. And when you look at Hong Kong as a staging place for doing business in China, it does offer enormous advantages. Hong Kong has been part of the world trading economy, part of the world investment system, for many, many decades. They are at a stage of maturity that makes it a very comfortable place, with good infrastructure, good legal systems, good financial markets where Canadian companies can feel very comfortable, and it's a good opportunity, I think, for a lot of Canadian companies to get involved with the China market and do it in a way which removes some of the potential risks and anxieties that some Canadian business people have. And the reality is this, that Canada is part of global supply chains, whether it's looking across the Atlantic or across the Pacific. Canada's linkages in the global supply chains are also linkages into China and Hong Kong. We've got the transportation links. We've got the communication links. We've got the trade links and the expertise, and all of the legal and other financial capabilities to drive that relationship much further. And Canada's already in Hong Kong. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has 1300 members in Hong Kong. That is a very heavy presence. And the Chinese population in Canada is one of the most prominent, high-potential qualities about Canada today. We have to use our Chinese-Canadian population to a much greater extent to help us build economic, cultural and other bridges to China and Hong Kong. And I'm just delighted that the Hong Kong-Canada Business Association is for the first time hosting this business forum, because I think it will be the beginning of a whole new relationship with China and with Hong Kong. And I wish you luck, and I hope you have a very inspiring and fruitful discussion today. So congratulations, and thank you very much. |
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