Role model: Less-developed countries who fear a more open trading economy should consider the Hong Kong example, Dr Eden Woon says.

What will the results of the WTO's Sixth Ministerial Conference mean for Hong Kong? What does the business community in Hong Kong expect from this important meeting? What services liberalisation would benefit Hong Kong? How do businesses here maximise the positive aspects and minimise the negative aspects of globalisation? How much is China - a relatively new WTO member - going to be a "force to be reckoned with" in multilateral trade?

Just days before world leaders converge on the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre for the Ministerial, or "MC6", local business leaders will be having a serious get-together of their own there - to try to answer some of these pressing questions.

The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce's 12th Annual Hong Kong Business Summit, being held today,  is titled "Heading into 2006: Hong Kong & the WTO". Its headliners include Chief Executive Donald Tsang and former WTO negotiator for China Long Yongtu.

The Chamber's 4,000-plus members - international and local companies, from large to small - have a vested interest in the WTO and the MC6's positive outcome.

"We are such a beneficiary of globalisation, I think it's very fitting to have the MC6 in Hong Kong, because we're probably one of the staunchest supporters of multilateral trade liberalisation," the Chamber's CEO Dr Eden Woon says.

Ranked as the world's freest economy by the esteemed Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation in the United States, Hong Kong boasts a free port, so tariffs are non-existent, Dr Woon says.

"We have money flowing in and out, we have freedom of information, you can't  be part of  the global economy without free information. We have free flow of people and talents from everywhere and increasingly from China."

While Hong Kong has few natural resources, apart from a prime geographical position, businesses here thrive "because we take advantage of this international connection," Dr Woon says.

Though it has a population of only about 7 million people, it has emerged as the 11th-largest trading entity in goods and the 15th-largest services-trading entity in the world. He cites local ingenuity and global connections - in particular Hong Kong's close relationship with the Mainland - as the key reasons.

"We trade and invest and talk and play with people all over the world. We don't have very much of a domestic economy at all like Japan or even China or the United States. What we've done is to set up an environment here to take advantage of our international connections," he says.

That makes Hong Kong a good example for smaller places, too.

"You have the European Union, you have the US, but a large number of  third world countries are less developed. Hong Kong gives a pretty good model, an alternate model, for development. For them to come here and see how we're able to thrive will be useful for them."

About 80% of the Chamber's members are in services. It has some manufacturers in its ranks, many in textiles, but it also has logistics players, PR firms, lawyers and accountants. "All of which when they go outside encounter market-access difficulty," he said. For them, greater liberalisation of services would be welcome.

"Whenever you think of exports, you home in on goods, watches, jewellery, shirts, whatever. What's not so well known is that Hong Kong exports three times as much services as goods. So that services liberalisation in international markets is extremely important to Hong Kong," Dr Woon said.

The Chamber has met regularly with the Government to voice their members' desire to pin down some of the gray areas on liberalising services. "There are a lot of things being discussed, but not tabled and not practiced on a practical basis."

Before WTO members hammer out any agreement on services, though, they must leap the hurdle of liberalising agriculture - a sector in which Hong Kong is admittedly not a player.

"Unfortunately, that's where the hang-up is for the Doha Round" of negotiations, the focus of the MC6. "All I can say is that we are nervous and extremely interested bystanders."

Less-developed countries who fear a more open trading economy should consider the Hong Kong example, Dr Woon says. The globalised trading economy here has helped lift living standards and benefits far outweigh the disadvantages.

Another example is right on our doorstep, he says. Through opening up and participating in the global economic order, hundreds of millions of people on the Mainland are now better off than 25 years ago. You could also consider Malaysia, Indonesia, and many other neighbouring countries that thrive through trade.

Dr Woon recalled former Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten's repeated remarks on a recent visit to the territory. If anyone needed convincing of the value of the globalised economy and a free market, they could do one of two things, he said. Read free-market thinker and proponent Adam Smith's works - "or buy an airplane ticket and come to Hong Kong and see just how these things work, and how we survive."

Luckily for them, many WTO members will have the second option when they visit Asia's world city in mid-December.