Hong Kong protests did not harm business confidence, says official

Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters took to Hong Kong’s streets for 79 days last year but the deputy chief of the city’s government said the affair had a negligible impact on business confidence.

On a flying visit to Dublin, Hong Kong chief secretary for administration Carrie Lam dismissed heavy opposition criticism of tweaks to the contested plan to elect the city’s chief executive from 2017.

Ms Lam, in office since 2012, was speaking to The Irish Times after meetings with Minister for Finance Michael Noonan and other Coalition figures.

She thanked the Government for establishing a consulate last year in Hong Kong and said Irish firms trading in China could raise offshore renminbi funds in Hong Kong or execute trade settlements there.

Although critics of the electoral plan say potential candidates to lead Hong Kong would in effect be screened by 1,200 members of a largely pro-Beijing nominating committee, Ms Lam said the legal scope to make nominations had been “stretched” to be made as competitive as possible.

Screening process

“It’s not a screening process per se, it is a process in accordance with the basic law requirement,” she said of Hong Kong’s mini-constitution.

“If [the proposals] are not constitutional then there’s no way that we could take this exercise forward.”

Of the protests, she said: “In terms of business confidence and business interest in Hong Kong, I see very little adverse impact.”

She had been very worried by the demonstrations because “things could go wrong” as a result of “more radical behaviour”, and said some isolated actions could have led to “some very undesirable” consequences.

Asked what kind of consequences she was referring to, she said: “Direct confrontation between the police and the protesters because the police have a job to do. They have to maintain law and order. They have to keep Hong Kong safe.”

She insisted there was no fundamental challenge to the “one country, two systems” framework that gives Hong Kong some autonomy from China. “Even if there is such a sentiment, I think there’s only probably a minority,” she said.

She made little of the slowdown in China’s economic growth, saying mainland firms used Hong Kong to expand in global markets.

“As long as Hong Kong makes good use of these opportunities I don’t think that lower – or in fact a more practical – growth in the mainland’s GDP will cause us any problems,” she said.