Functions
Hong Kong has full autonomy in the conduct of its external commercial relations. The Basic Law of the Hong Kong provides that it shall be a separate customs territory and may, using the name 'Hong Kong, China', participate in relevant international organisations and international trade agreements, such as the World Trade Organization.
The HKETOs concentrate most of their work on promoting Hong Kong's economic and trade interests. The major function of HKETOs include:
- Enhancing understanding of Hong Kong among opinion-formers
- Monitoring developments that might affect Hong Kong's economic and trading interests
- Liaising closely with the business and commercial sectors, politicians and the news media.
- Organize events to promote Hong Kong's image
- Regularly meeting with counterparts and contacts in the territories under their purview
- Organizes overseas visits of senior Hong Kong officials
HKETO London serves concurrently as Hong Kong's permanent mission to the International Maritime Organisation, HKETO Brussels to the European Communities, and HKETO Geneva to the World Trade Organisation.
In countries or territories where no HKETO is present, diplomatic missions of China have the duty to represent Hong Kong's interests. Visa applications at these missions are, nevertheless, sent to and processed by the Immigration Department of Hong Kong.
Read more about this topic: Hong Kong Economic And Trade Office
Famous quotes containing the word functions:
“When Western people train the mind, the focus is generally on the left hemisphere of the cortex, which is the portion of the brain that is concerned with words and numbers. We enhance the logical, bounded, linear functions of the mind. In the East, exercises of this sort are for the purpose of getting in tune with the unconscious—to get rid of boundaries, not to create them.”
—Edward T. Hall (b. 1914)
“Adolescents, for all their self-involvement, are emerging from the self-centeredness of childhood. Their perception of other people has more depth. They are better equipped at appreciating others’ reasons for action, or the basis of others’ emotions. But this maturity functions in a piecemeal fashion. They show more understanding of their friends, but not of their teachers.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)
“One of the most highly valued functions of used parents these days is to be the villains of their children’s lives, the people the child blames for any shortcomings or disappointments. But if your identity comes from your parents’ failings, then you remain forever a member of the child generation, stuck and unable to move on to an adulthood in which you identify yourself in terms of what you do, not what has been done to you.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)