Hong Kong to grasp new opportunities after China's WTO accession: Tsang

HONG KONG (AFX-ASIA) - Chief Secretary Donald Tsang said Hong Kong should grasp new opportunities from China's eventual entry into the WTO.	    "The U.S. market has become fairly mature and so have the European and the Japanese markets. China will have a lot of business opportunities in particular along the coastal areas (after its WTO entry)," Tsang said at the Fortune Global Forum.	    He urged the WTO to grant membership to China as soon as possible, putting aside other political factors, including the recent tension with the U.S. over its surveillance flights over China's coast.	    Tsang said Hong Kong has become stronger after surviving the Asian financial crisis.	    "Any country will face different trials and difficulties. It depends on whether it can remain resilient and resourceful enough to deal with those difficulties," he said.	    He said Hong Kong is unlikely to change its U.S. dollar-linked exchange rate system as the U.S. is the largest trading partner for the local economy.	    "We cannot change our exchange rate system to better correlate with the European economy, when the U.S. economy is slowing down... and the U.S. is our biggest trading partner," he said.	    He said Hong Kong is a free society with 35,000 visitors daily.	    "We only reject entry of less than 50 visitors every day... They include some of the international criminals and other people who may endanger the well being of the Hong Kong society," he said.	    However, he did not indicate if this includes Falun Gong adherents.  

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