European business leaders say quarantine measures could harm HK's international business hub status

The European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong has urged the government to open the city after it tightened its quarantine measures in mid-August. This comes as the group feels the tightened measures will otherwise undermine Hong Kong's status as an international business centre. 

In an open letter, chairman of the Board of Directors Frederik Gollob said recent concerns raised by the Hong Kong government’s health advisors around isolated cases of residents returning to the city and testing positive after a few days of coming out of the quarantine were out of proportion, and contributed again to concern within the international community, adding that Hong Kong must open itself sooner rather than later. 

"This new quarantine regime could lead many in the international community to question if they want to remain indefinitely trapped in Hong Kong when the rest of the world is moving on. This concern amongst the international business community could pose, undoubtedly, a growing threat to Hong Kong’s status as an international business centre," he said. 

Last week, Hong Kong tightened its entry restrictions starting on 20 August for arrivals from 16 countries battling a resurgence in COVID-19 cases. These included US, Malaysia and Thailand, where the government extended the mandatory quarantine period to 21 days. Meanwhile, quarantine measures for fully vaccinated people returning from medium- and low-risk countries also increased to 14 days. 

Gollob said the changes to the quarantine requirements presented a significant setback. Using European countries as examples, he explained that airports were open and travel across Europe was resuming gradually, people vaccinated could in most cases travel for private and business to other destinations with no need for quarantine.He urged that government consider a number of actions.

The European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong also encouraged the government to create and communicate a clear exit strategy to the pandemic which would take into account not only the local health concerns regarding COVID-19, but also the overall mental wellbeing of the entire population, particularly the most vulnerable groups such as children and the elderly.

Formulating such an exit strategy would be the basis to restore confidence as well as enabling businesses (both local and international) to plan ahead.

The chamber also advised the government to continue to step up efforts on the vaccination of the remaining population and continue to relax all quarantine measures for vaccinated visitors as this will help to reactivate the international, as well as local, business in conjunction with intensive testing efforts. Gollob added that with new variants of the virus coming in, it looked very likely that the risk of infection will continue for an unforeseeable time.

"Many countries have made plans to face the current crisis considering the above scenario, whereby the relevant populations live with the virus, which, similar to the seasonal flu, evolves and is not as lethal, also because the populations are increasingly vaccinated and are provided with boosters frequently. This allows for life to resume and for the economy to be able to re-open fully again," he concluded. 

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