Dear Readers:

I hope you are having a relaxing summer, wherever you are!  As for AmCham HK, we have two major tasks during these summer months.  One is the Washington Doorknock which we traditionally take each summer, and the other is the intense work with the Chamber Committees on our submission to the Policy Address.  The roughly 50-page Policy Address Submission which we do each summer, and our Business Sentiment Survey that we do each winter, are the Chamber’s two major annual advocacy projects.  Throughout the year, we have technical and topic-specific advocacy efforts, reflecting Chamber members’ views to the HKSAR Government, usually generated by our Committees.  Chamber members have many ideas about how to improve the business environment here, and we are constantly conveying them to the Hong Kong SAR Government.  At times, we also express our views to the US Consul General in Hong Kong and to the China Ministry of Foreign Affairs Commissioner in Hong Kong.

As for the Doorknock to Washington, it is complemented in the Fall by our annual Doorknock to Beijing, which will take place in late November this year.  The Doorknock to Washington, which was just held earlier this month, was a delegation comprised of senior Chamber leaders meeting with Administration officials, congressional members and staff, and think tank experts. During the Doorknock, we had constructive dialogues with our interlocutors describing how our members view Hong Kong and the business environment here, and what the challenges are, and we had useful takeaways on what the policy makers and experts in Washington were thinking about Hong Kong.   You can find a summary of this year’s Doorknock to Washington in this issue of the e-magazine, and the delegation will brief AmCham members in person in mid-August at a closed-door session, with a detailed report to be circulated to members afterwards. 

Finally, in this issue, you will find a fascinating interview with Professor Jin Keyu of the London School of Economics, a renowned China economist who spoked at our China Conference in April.  Then there is an interesting view by Krish Sundaresan, general manager of Hong Kong and Macau for Pfizer Inc., about Hong Kong as a medical health hub. There is also an uplifting CEO interview in this issue with our Vice Chairman David Butts, as well as inspiring journeys of Dennis Wilder, Flora Ma and Jonathan Der on how Hong Kong has impacted their academia and entrepreneurial lives respectively. Please enjoy these and other articles, and we hope to see you this Fall at Chamber events, including the AmCham Ball on October 5, with the theme “The Great Outdoors of Hong Kong”!