Foreign investors not leaving Hong Kong

Global Business

Foreign investors are watching the Hong Kong protests carefully, but they haven’t yet discontinued doing business in the city. CCTV America’s Cathy Yang reports.

While business is slowly coming back after police removed some barricades blocking traffic in the Central area of the city, some are worried about Hong Kong’s current appeal as an investment hub for global companies.

During the height of the protests, some British companies saw logistics nightmares, but they found workarounds.

“The British community has been historically through all this. I’ve lived through the change in sovereignty, I’ve lived though the Asian economic downturn, SARS, first of July, and now this, and we’re all still here. The British community has remained very stable, and that has grown and increased,” said Christopher Hammerbeck, executive director for British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong.

U.K. companies employ 10 percent of the workforce in Hong Kong. Companies such as Swire, Jardine, and Prudential have been doing business in the city since before the British handover, and Hammerbeck says they’re not about to abandon the city.

But the protests have hurt perceptions, some said.

“I still believe it is an investment hub. But in terms of the attractiveness, that would be less compared with the previous. That would be less attractive given that Hong Kong previously is a very safe city and very stable, ” said Lewis Wan, chief investment officer for The Pride Group.