Secretary for Justice Paul Lam called on the Supreme People’s Court and central ministries respectively in Beijing for two consecutive days to discuss and exchange views on the progress and work of the key policy initiatives of the Department of Justice (DoJ).
This morning, Mr Lam visited the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC) Beijing Representative Office to learn about how the office assists the HKIAC in further developing the Mainland market following its establishment in Beijing. The opportunities brought about by the revised Arbitration Law of the People’s Republic of China were also discussed.
Mr Lam then went to the State-owned Assets Supervision & Administration Commission of the State Council to discuss opportunities for co-operation in areas such as capacity building programmes and talent training between the two sides.
He also met Vice Minister of Justice Wu Zeng to discuss issues relating to legal matters concerning the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), including “allowing Hong Kong-invested enterprises to choose for arbitration to be seated in Hong Kong”, the development of the GBA lawyers’ scheme, and the co-operation between Mainland and Hong Kong law firms.
At the start of his visit yesterday morning, Mr Lam called on the Supreme People’s Court to meet President of the Supreme People’s Court Zhang Jun. They discussed the mutual legal assistance arrangements and training for foreign-related legal talent between the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Mainland.
In the afternoon, Mr Lam called on the Ministry of Commerce where he introduced to Deputy China International Trade Representative Jiang Chenghua the DoJ’s measures to strengthen Hong Kong’s professional services sectors in supporting Mainland enterprises going global, and ways to encourage Mainland enterprises to adopt Hong Kong law as the applicable law while expanding overseas and to choose Hong Kong as the destination for dispute resolution.
During the meeting with Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Hua Chunying, both sides exchanged views on issues such as supporting the Hong Kong SAR and the DoJ in collaborating with international legal organisations and enhancing Hong Kong’s status as the centre for international legal and dispute resolution services.
