Head of small businesses trade body waiting to see how things develop in 3-month tariff grace periodPresident Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump agree to truce following meeting at G20 summit in Buenos Aires
For Danny Lau Tat-pong, honorary chairman of the Hong Kong Small and Medium Enterprises Association, the truce is music to his ears.
But Lau, who like many other Hong Kong businessmen runs factories in Dongguan city in mainland China, made clear on Sunday that he would not immediately drop his plans to relocate his aluminium workshops to Southeast Asia.
“I will still continue to conduct feasibility studies on the relocation. I may still move some factories, not all of them, to Southeast Asia,” Lau said.
“Of course, the truce is good news to me. But we’ll have to see how things go in the 90 days.”
The city’s commerce minister, Edward Yau Tang-wah, said the latest development would help ease pressure on Hong Kong’s export volumes in the current quarter and the next.
“The biggest worry was that a big increase in tariffs at the start of next year could affect the number of orders,” Yau said on a radio programme.
Despite tensions brought by the trade war, Yau said additional orders had put the city’s export figures in positive territory this year.
