When an entrepreneur has incorporated a Hong Kong company, the compliance work is far from the end. A typical company secretary does not always have to be an individual person, but it may be another company or a partnership. Usually, company secretary service in Hong Kong may be provided by many local lawyers, accountants, or third-party consulting agencies to their clients. This happens when the owner is a one-man team in his own company i.e. a small business owner who has registered a company in Hong Kong but is unable to have spare time to manage the daily secretary work of his company.
The administrative operation in which a HK registered company must comply include: annual compliance, annual general meeting, annual tax return filing, business registration renewal, storing of statutory records, due diligence, and more. The following items are included in the company secretary service: Appointment of director, change of director, removal of director, transfer of shares, allotment of shares, change of bank signatory, arrangement of meetings among all the shareholders and directors, and more. Should the entrepreneur not need his company anymore, he may go through de-registration, striking off, winding up, etc.
In terms of economy, Hong Kong has been a free market economy. HK is highly and mainly dependent on international trade and finance. Hong Kong’s property pricing has risen quite quickly due to the fact that housing supply has been tight but demand is always high. Excess liquidity and low interest rates have also been factors. The outcome to the local Hong Kong citizens is that housing has become less affordable for the lower and middle income segments. But the good thing is that HK’s fast growing economy has left the city exposed to the global economy – Hong Kong relies on foreign trade and investment. This leads to the vulnerability when reacting to the fluctuations of the global financial markets.
In terms of import and export businesses, Hong Kong has no tariffs on imported goods while earning taxes from alcohol, tobacco, oil, and methyl alcohol products. Often Hong Kong is still the place of re-exporting goods. HK has maintained the local currency bounded with the US dollar which stabilizes the operation costs of the import/export trades.
Both local citizens and foreigners have been opening new companies in Hong Kong for the past years, especially professionals who are self-employed and have no employer to claim their operation expenses from. Having a company incorporated can really help entrepreneurs and self-employed persons to save cost.
