eNorth from Hong Kong: On the Midday of 29 March, HKGCC(Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce) hosted a grand reception in Grand Hyatt Hotel to welcome Mayor Li Shenglin and his government delegation. In the reception, Li Shenglin gave a speech permeating with warm feeling to introduce Tianjin and his advantages. He spoke the future development and plan. Mayor Li also warmly invited foreign friends to invest in Tianjin for future co-development. His speech was often interrupted by clapping and the atmosphere was very hot. PhoenixTV Chinese Channel and Tianjin TV Station jointly transmit the live of the reception; eNorth delivers the live-video on the Internet. Before the reception, Mayor Li also met the Chairman of HKGCC Mr. C.C. Tung, General Chairman of HKGCC Zen Weizhi and Director of HKGCC Dr.Eden Woon.

HKGCC is one of the most influential commercial chambers, which has 4,000 members around the world. 20% of the members are foreign famous enterprises. In the reception, 70 well-known enterprises' entrepreneurs got together and chatted cheerfully. They all paid their attention on Tianjin's potentialities.

Mayor Li in his speech firstly introduced Tianjin's recent economic and social development. He said one distinguished feature of Tianjin's development is to focus on Door-opening and cities' International Change. Opening-economy has been an important support to city's economic growth. Hong Kong is an international finance and commerce Metropolis which has been having close relation with Tianjin. Hong Kong Investment in Tianjin covers manufacturing industry, food & beverage, service-trade and agriculture. All these Hong Kong enterprises become the energy of Tianjin economic growth and of course get rich feedback from the investment in Tianjin.

When talking about Tianjin's future development, Li Shenglin said as the new century began, Tianjin's economic and social development enterred a new historical era. "Under the direction of the Central Government's policies towards Tianjin, we will finish three important historical tasks at the beginning of this century and we have worked out the 10th Five-Year Plan with the theme of 'Developing in High Speed', which both greatly inspire Tianjin people and offers a lot of business opportunities to overseas investors. At present, a large quantity of urban infrastructurs are being constructed, hi-tech industries are developing, central business zone and central commercial zone are being established and big and middle-sized state-owned enterprises are being reformed and adjusted in a higher and higher speed, etc., which offer more and more opportunities and choices to overseas investors. Tianjin and Hong Kong have a tight connection, strong mutural economic complement and a solid cooperation basis. In the new century, we have more cooperation opportunities and a wider cooperation prospect. As long as we make efforts together, we surely can make new contributions to the prosperous and development of Hong Kong and Tianjin." Mr. Li said.

The participating entrepreneurs were greatly interested in this speech and they actively discussed and exchanged opinions with the memebers of the Government Delegations in the conference hall. They expressed their willings of enhancing their communication and cooperation with Tianjin. The person in charge of HKGCC said HKGCC would organize Hong Kong entrepreneurs to study in Tianjin and seek new cooperation opportunities this year.

The presidents of some enterprises such as Bouygues from France, Caterpillar from the US, Yongtai Export Co.,Ltd., China Transportation(Hong Kong) Group, PCCW and Spain Chamber of Commerce, etc. and the consuls and the consul generals of Australian, North Korean, French, Egyptian, Greek, Indian and Philipine consulates in Hong Kong attended the reception.

Picture: Mayor Li Shenglin is making speech

(Zhang Huijun and Wang Wei)