CEPA benefits Hong Kong economy: ministry

An economic partnership between the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong has brought substantial benefits to the special administrative region's economy, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Tuesday.

Since 2003, the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) and its ensuing 10 supplements have boosted trade, tourism and business ties between the two sides, MOC spokesperson Shen Danyang told a press briefing.

CEPA assigned zero tariffs to all Hong Kong products and the mainland imported 9.7 billion U.S. dollars of goods from Hong Kong between 2006 and March 2016, with tax abatement reaching 825 million U.S. dollars, Shen said.

Trade in services has also thrived with its volume accounting for 17.2 percent of the mainland's total service trade, Shen said. The two sides signed a stand-alone, subsidiary agreement under the CEPA framework last year to liberalize the services sector.

Mainland tourist visits to Hong Kong under the Individual Visit Scheme rose from 670,000 in 2003 to 27.9 million last year. By 2014, such visits had generated 99.3 billion U.S. dollars in revenue for Hong Kong.

Almost 8,000 individual businesses from Hong Kong had registered in the mainland by the end of 2015, creating well over 20,000 jobs.

"CEPA has greatly increased the prosperity and stability of the Hong Kong economy," he told reporters. Endi