US smears fail to dent confidence in Hong Kong: China Daily editorial

The Hong Kong business report the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government released on Monday indicates that the city remains one of the most attractive destinations for business and investment from around the world.

Contrary to the baseless claims the US administration has been making that the city's business environment has deteriorated due to the enforcement of the National Security Law for Hong Kong, the introduction of the law, as the report shows, has helped improve Hong Kong's business environment by serving as a legal foundation to maintain peace and stability in the SAR.

During the peak of the unrest in Hong Kong in 2019, which was orchestrated from behind the scenes by US agencies, some US politicians declared that it was "a beautiful sight to behold", feeling no qualms about the serious influences on Hong Kong's business environment and people's livelihoods. Washington didn't start shedding crocodile tears on the situation in Hong Kong until the central government managed to bring peace and order back to the city. It was only after its proxies in Hong Kong could not make waves anymore that the US began imposing sanctions on the city, and pressuring US companies to leave.

When the SAR was struggling to get a grip on the novel coronavirus and it was exacting a heavy toll on its economy, it was the Chinese mainland, not the US, that extended a helping hand to protect people's lives and maintain the normal operations of the international trade, financial and logistics hub.

In the 2020 Doing Business report released by the World Bank, Hong Kong was ranked third among all countries and regions in terms of its business environment. That means its institutional advantages remain unchanged. And that shows it has regained its attraction for businesses from around the world again soon after the introduction of the national security law restored order and stability in the city.

With the recent announcement of the upgrading of the Qianhai and Hengqin cooperation zones, in Shenzhen and Zhuhai respectively, the integrated development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is all set to speed up, providing Hong Kong and Macao with more opportunities to share the development dividends of the mainland. And Hong Kong's engagement in the Belt and Road Initiative also opens new channels for it to give full play to its advantages. In this process, the ways for the SAR to participate in the global economy will only increase.

Accordingly, foreign businesses operating in Hong Kong can look forward to more opportunities with greater confidence and certainty.