Dr. Liu sent me a message last night, asking me to speak in English. He set up because we have a lot of international audiences. We should really do it bilingual. But I secretly think that he was actually just being kind to myself so that I don’t have to prepare in mandarin. So thank you very much, Dr. Liu. I’m particularly delighted to be able to speak to our friends here today. A lot of you, we have seen over the past 5 days in Hong Kong. It is rare that we get to see each other 5 days in a row, in any event. So thank you very much for the support to the ICCA Congress. Thank you very much for your support to Hong Kong SAR. On the ICCA Congress, I think Joanne Lau (Ms. Joanne Lau, Secretary-General of HKIAC), Yang Ling (Dr. Ling Yang, Deputy Secretary-General of HKIAC) and the HKIAC team actually deserve another round of applause from every one of us, for the hard work they have put in. 

As many of you are aware, Joanne took up the job very recently, and I think she must secretly feel that she was conned in taking up that job with all that responsibility. When I saw Yang Ling at the HKIAC last week, she did say to me that: look, this was supposed to be the first of May holiday in Chinese mainland, but I’m working here every day, but I couldn’t be happier. Thank you very much, everyone, who was involved in that. As a lot of you know, Hong Kong SAR has had a few difficult years over the past few years. What happened? On 2019, and then the pandemic itself has created a lot of difficulties for the city. So we are particularly glad that we have had so many visitors from different jurisdictions visiting Hong Kong SAR and the overall reaction that we got in Hong Kong SAR was one that was extremely positive. And I thank all of you for supporting Hong Kong SAR. I thank you for coming to the ICCA Congress again. I know you have been thanked many times, but forgive me for doing that once again. 

I started the ICCA week by an event, organized by the Hong Kong Bar Association. This is a particular important year for the Hong Kong Bar Association in Hong Kong SAR as we celebrate our 75th anniversary. That event was co-organized by the HKIAC that was also an event where Director Yang, Judge Xi Xiangyang (Mr. Xiangyang Xi, Judge of the Supreme People’s Court of the PRC and China International Commercial Court), and Anthony Neoh (Mr. Anthony Neoh, Vice Chairman of SCIA Council, Chairman of the Board of SCIA HK, Senior Counsel) all spoke for the Bar Association and to our members. So I would want to take this opportunity to express our gratitude again. 

The SCIA had a particular relationship with the Hong Kong Bar Association. When after I took up the role as chairman, the SCIA was actually the first organization that call me up asking if we were interested in collaboration, since then we have organized multiple event with you in Shenzhen, in Hong Kong SAR. And of course in the first year, we can only do it online because of the pandemic. We have always been extremely grateful to your support and we are very grateful for your friendship. I’m sure that the Hong Kong Bar Association and the SCIA can continue our collaboration in Shenzhen and in Hong Kong SAR. Thank you very much, Dr. Liu. 

As a lot of you are aware, it is the policy of the Central People’s Government to support Hong Kong SAR in maintaining our status as the regional dispute resolution hub. We are grateful to the support given by the Central Government, by various bodies that have supported Hong Kong SAR, including in particular, the Ministry of Justice, the Supreme People’s Court, and of course our own Department of Justice in over the past few years in helping the Hong Kong Bar Association in playing our role in this process. As the specialist advocate profession in Hong Kong SAR, we of course understand that we have a vital role to play and we will work extremely hard in achieving this goal. And in this regard, the development of international arbitration in Hong Kong SAR is one of the priorities. A lot of the resources over the past 2 years were devoted in helping our young people in developing a career in international arbitration. That is something that we will continue to invest in, and that will continue to be our priority. I am ending this ICCA Week in Shenzhen, in the SCIA and this is something that was not by design in the first place. And I’m particularly happy that I started a week at our own event, and I’m ending this week in the SCIA. I am sure that this event will be a success, and I hope all of you will have a good time in Shenzhen on this fine day. 

Thank you very much.