How Asean can save Hong Kong from losing out to Singapore on China-related trade
William Marshall says Hong Kong’s position is under serious threat from Singapore since the Asean-China free-trade agreement, and the SAR must negotiate access to the same deal in its own trade negotiations with the bloc
Unfortunately, no details of the agreement have been made available just yet; and for Hong Kong, the devil is most certainly in the details.
There is a lot at stake for Hong Kong, as it hopes to stop the precipitous decline in its cargo throughput and its broader position as a hub for China-related trade.
Hong Kong has always been a hub for China-related trade. It is arguably its entire reason for existence. This has been a success story for Hong Kong, with steady and impressive growth for decades, until all that changed.
Over the past six or seven years, there has been a decline in global trade generally, but more specifically in the relative volumes of Asia’s trade with North America and Europe, where growth has been eclipsed by the relative increase in intra-Asia trade. According to the World Bank, intra-Asia trade eclipsed Asia-North America and Asia-Europe trade as a proportion of total trade in 2012, and has consistently gained annual share since.
