Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Algernon Yau, on Friday said the government was on course to beat a target of attracting 1,130 outside firms to invest in Hong Kong within a three-year period.

At a special finance committee meeting in Legco discussing this year's budget, he said officials enabled 382 firms to set up here last year, and 150 in the first three months of 2024.

Yau said these companies came from places like the mainland, Japan, Singapore, the UK and the US.

The head of InvestHK, Alpha Lau, said some of these companies might not have made big splashes with their promotional campaigns.

"Some may want to come to Hong Kong, they'd like to use the SAR as a springboard into the mainland market, or some mainland enterprises would like to come here and use Hong Kong as a platform," she told lawmakers.

"But then they want to stay low profile as a result of geopolitical tensions."

Yau also expressed hope the SAR could become a member of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) this year, which is the world's biggest free trade agreement in terms of GDP.

He told lawmakers it normally takes 18 months for RCEP members to vet applications, and the group only started dealing with the requests in June last year.

Meanwhile, New People's Party chairwoman Regina Ip said she thinks it's not necessary to spend HK$33.5 million on the SAR's Economic and Trade Office in London, urging the government to cut costs.

"[The office in London] is not very useful nowadays... Because the positions of those anti-China politicians are pre-determined. No matter what you say, it's pointless," the lawmaker said.

The Commerce and Economic Development Bureau said in response that not only does the office in London handle affairs in the UK, it's also in charge of matters in other parts of Europe, so officials consider the current deployments to be suitable.

At the same meeting, lawmaker Shang Hailong raised concern about the use of online media by the government.

Official figures showed RTHK, the government broadcaster overseen by the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau, had 1.38 million followers on Facebook as of the end of February, and Shang asked if the number was on the low side.

In response, Director of Broadcasting Eddie Cheung said the station's YouTube channel also had more than one million followers, or 17 rating points in terms of viewership, adding whether that reading was low or not was open for interpretation.
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Last updated: 2024-04-19 HKT 15:37