Secretary for Justice Paul Lam Ting-kwok is leading a roughly 40-member Hong Kong delegation on a visit to Xinjiang, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan from August 23 to 29, as the city seeks to expand legal and related professional-services links with the region. The itinerary includes Urumqi, Almaty and Tashkent.
The delegation is presenting Hong Kong’s common-law system and expertise in litigation and international arbitration as relevant to Chinese companies entering Central Asian markets. In Urumqi, it held the opening ceremony for a training programme on Hong Kong common law and dispute-resolution practice, where Mr Lam explained the framework of “one country, two systems” and distinctive features of Hong Kong’s legal system.
The training covered the values of Hong Kong common law, Hong Kong court procedures, international arbitration practice, and practical legal issues facing Chinese companies entering Central Asia, including arbitration clauses. Star Headline reported that more than 160 people attended, including local Xinjiang lawyers and lawyers from 15 mainland provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities; another report described attendance only as more than 100.
The delegation includes legal-sector representatives, the Belt and Road Commissioner, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, Invest Hong Kong, the Financial Services Development Council and representatives of the accountancy sector. Mr Lam also met Chen Xiaojiang, secretary of the Xinjiang regional Communist Party committee, to discuss Hong Kong’s work in line with national planning and stronger co-operation between the two sides.
Hong Kong Law Society vice-presidents Ada Lai and Yu Kwok-kin arrived in Urumqi ahead of the main delegation on August 23 and met representatives of the Xinjiang Lawyers Association. Law Society president Tang Man-lung had earlier joined Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s business delegation to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in May.
The delegation’s planned next stops are Almaty and Tashkent. The reports provided no details of its meetings there, or of any agreements or specific legal-services projects resulting from the visit.