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Deteriorating air quality in Hong Kong
will drive away potential investors and thus threaten the city's
competitiveness as Asia's free trade center, expatriate businessmen
in Hong Kong warned on Wednesday.
"If intellectual property piracy is
stealing goods, our poor environment is stealing our health and our
future," said Steve Marcopoto, president and managing director of
Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific, Inc.
"The 'Death of Hong Kong'
may...(result) quite literally from the air we breathe," he said in
his inaugural speech as 2006 chairman of the American Chamber of
Commerce in Hong Kong (AmCham).
Having widely consulted with its
members, most American businessmen in Hong Kong, the chamber set
poor air quality and intellectual property piracy as two priority
issues to work on.
Describing air pollution as an issue of
"a sense of urgency," Marcopoto announced that the AmCham was
setting up a special task force to study how best to apply the
private sector's influence to improve the environment.
"If pollution control is not improved,
it may undermine Hong Kong's competitiveness," warned a statement
issued by the AmCham, which represents the 55,000-strong American
community in Hong Kong and employers of an estimated 250,000 people
here.
Marcopoto noted environment influence
has been counted into the cost of large international corporations
when they try to set up a regional center in Asia.
Though no trend has been detected that
investors are moving out of Hong Kong for poor air quality, the
issue has become a major concern of expatriate employees, said
Marcopoto.
"People start to think twice before
moving their wives and children to a place heavily polluted," he
told reporters, saying there are many good places in the region.
Though emissions of three major
pollutants -- nitrogen oxides, respirable suspended particulates and
volatile organic compounds -- have dropped since 1997 in Hong Kong,
the city still suffered low air quality, according to data provided
by the Environment Protection Department of the Government of the
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).
The levels of a fourth pollutant,
sulfur dioxide, has risen by 41 percent.
In September 2005, the department
issued warning of worst air quality, advising people with heart or
respiratory illnesses to avoid outdoor activities when a pollution
index reading reached 168 by a 200 standard.
The authorities have taken actions to
improve air quality, including limiting the use of gas type of the
city's bus and conducting air quality check with the mainland
authorities around the Pearl River Delta.
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