With its accelerating economic recovery and shift toward a balanced budget, Hong Kong will continue to be "the gateway to China" for businesses from Japan and around the world in the coming century, according to the principal representative at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Tokyo.

Cheung Man Yee made the remark in an interview this week, following up on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's announcement last week of its fiscal 2000 budgetary appropriation bill.

According to the bill, Hong Kong's economy is expected to grow 5 percent in fiscal 2000 -- which starts in April -- following 2.9 percent growth in the previous fiscal year.

While revising upward average growth during the 2000-2003 period from 3.5 percent to 4 percent, the regional government is aiming to balance its budget by 2002 by streamlining government spending and introducing new taxation.

If and when China joins the World Trade Organization, the growth rate will be up 5.5 percent by 2010.

"Even though some big multinational businesses have set up their own offices in Beijing and Shanghai (expecting China to join the WTO,) Hong Kong remains the best location for medium-size and international companies to set up their headquarters to prepare themselves for doing business with China," Cheung said. "We are very confident."

In particular, Hong Kong's strength lies in its successful shift toward an economy driven by service sectors such as finance, information and telecommunications, with its low and simple taxation and mature rule of law sustained under the one-nation, two-system regime, she said.

While hailing recent partnerships such as that between NTT DoCoMo and Hutchison Telecom and the tieup between Hikari Tsushin Inc. and Pacific Century CyberWorks Ltd., Cheung said she expects growing partnerships between Japanese and Hong Kong firms in information and technology and a rebound of Japanese investment in accordance with Japan's steady recovery.

"Technically, there's a lot of knowhow in Japan that is very useful, and Hong Kong has a very healthy open-door free-economy policy and the best infrastructure for the development of this kind of high-tech innovation. In partnership with Japan and the United States, Hong Kong is well-placed to be the hub of this telecommunication development in the (Asia) region."

While pledging to do the best to further expand the scope of "healthy" trade and cultural ties between Japan and Hong Kong, Cheung said she would like to see more women here taking part in policymaking at higher levels both in business and politics.

Cheung was appointed in December as the first female principal representative of the Hong Kong economic and trade office in Tokyo.