Annual Report 2014-15

4 FHKI Annual Report 2014-15 Chairman’s Statement 主席報告 level of automation in order to stay afloat. Some Hong Kong enterprises are planning to relocate part of their production lines outside the PRD or abroad. While Hong Kong industrial enterprises continue to rely on Hong Kong for sources of finance, there is a weakening in their connections with Hong Kong in terms of logistics and production services including trading activities. The year 2014-15 was a remarkable one for the Federation of Hong Kong Industries (FHKI). Apart from celebrating our 55 th anniversary, the addition of five new industry groups to the FHKI family also marked an important milestone in our corporate development. This year, the Q-Mark Council has become the first organisation in Hong Kong with accreditation on food given by the Hong Kong Accreditation Service, which fully reflects the Council’s professional capabilities. In June 2014, the Design Council launched the new D-Mark scheme to encourage companies to make good use of design to add value to their products and services. Our anniversary celebration activities started off with a press conference held in February during which the findings of “Made in PRD Study IV – Hong Kong Industry: The Way Forward” were announced. The FHKI has been regularly conducting in-depth studies on Hong Kong industries operating in the PRD and this fourth Study was conducted by Dr Thomas Chan Man-hung, Head of the China Business Centre of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), with generous sponsorship from HSBC Commercial Banking and the PolyU. The Study found that Hong Kong enterprises, in the face of rising labour costs, shortages of labour and increasingly stringent regulatory requirements, have slowed down the pace of investment in the PRD, downsized their workforce, increased local procurement in the Mainland and raised the