十五年的渴望(香港上海汇丰银行主席艾尔敦先生-中国与WTO).docVIP

? 中国与WTO：十五年的渴望China and the WTO: the 15-year Itch 香港上海汇丰银行有限公司主席艾尔敦先生Speech by Mr David Eldon, Chairman, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited 纽约香港协会早餐会Hong Kong Association of New York breakfast meeting 2002年4月25日 ? Mr David Eldon:Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen, I stand before you today with a confession to make. It relates to something that I did recently. Exactly one month ago, I delivered a speech to another American audience. It was a gathering of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. I talked about Hong Kongs changing role. And about how Hong Kong can compete as it becomes increasingly easier for foreign companies to do business in China. On that day in March, I made several suggestions. One of which was that when travelling overseas, government officials and business people from Hong Kong should spend more time selling Hong Kong to the sceptics. And less time speaking to the converted. Consequently I am here today, in front of a decidedly Hong Kong-friendly crowd, in direct violation of my own advice. That said, I plan to redeem myself by not devoting too much time talking about Hong Kong - a topic that is well known to this audience. Rather I intend to concentrate on the less known. In particular, the implications of Chinas entry into the WTO. The implications for Hong Kong and the implications for foreign companies. In doing so, I am going to focus my talk on three distinct areas of knowledge: what we know we know;what we know we do not know; andwhat we do not know we know. Common knowledgeFirst, what we know we know. We know that China means different things to different people. To overseas manufacturing firms or trading companies it is the land of a billion buyers of shoes, cars and computers. To foreign companies already in China it is a place that warrants expansion. In fact, a recent survey found that nine out every 10 foreign companies operating in China plan to expand their investment in the next three yea