HONG KONG: With the industrialized Western countries having a slow recovery from the 2008 financial crisis, emerging markets in Latin America represent an area that Hong Kong is looking at to increase its trading and investment relationships.

Simon Galpin, director general of Investment Promotion of Invest Hong Kong (InvestHK), will be visiting a number of Latin American countries next month to attract more investments from the region.

InvestHK already has an office in Brazil, but extended its presence in the region when it recently opened a representative office in Colombia.

On the Colombian side, a Colombian attach told China Daily that the country is very positive about improving business ties with Hong Kong.

"Colombian businesses have seen Hong Kong as a base from which to expand their businesses, taking advantage of the city's strategic location and its connectivity to the Chinese mainland and the rest of Asia," said Alejandro Ossa, economic and commercial attach for the Colombian government in the People's Republic of China.

In recent years bilateral trade between Hong Kong and Colombia has shot up, albeit from a relatively low base. Between January and November 2009 Colombian exports to Hong Kong surpassed $57. 7 million, a 72 percent year on year increase.

Ossa said Foreign Direct Investment is also an important component of Colombia's growth strategy and the fact that Hong Kong is the second largest source of FDI outflows from Asia makes the city attractive to Colombia.

"One of our goals is to reach out to Hong Kong's big conglomerates that have started to explore untapped opportunities in emerging markets outside of Asia. I'm thinking of companies like Hutchison Whampoa that owns and operates container terminals and cruise ship facilities internationally. It may be interested in Colombia's favorable strategic location with coasts on both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans," Ossa said.

But he added there are also opportunities for small and medium size Hong Kong enterprises that could benefit from Columbia's strategic location - less than four hours away from the United States, preferential market access to more than 1.2 billion consumers due to Free Trade Agreements, a growing and flexible labor force as well as assistance from Proexport, Colombia's investment promotion agency.

Ossa said Colombian authorities have designed incentives like Free Trade Zones with a 15 per cent income tax and the possibility of selling to the local market, and income tax exemptions for up to 20 years.

Ossa said the country is also in the process of improving its international image.

"For years, Colombia's image has been related to drugs and violence, but we have a campaign called 'Colombia is Passion', which is generating a platform of contents telling the world that deep changes have been carried out, and that the country has achieved advances in security and economic stability," he said.

(HK Edition 02/11/2010 page2)