Opinion | When Jiang Zemin showed the world that Hong Kong meant business

I have fond memories of president Jiang Zemin, who died last week at the age of 96. Though he did not know it, he had a great influence on my life and career.

In July 2000, I had been asked to set up a new government department, InvestHK, to attract businesses from around the world to set up in our city. It was a challenging assignment.

The images of Hong Kong over the three previous years that lingered in foreigners’ minds were largely negative: the armoured vehicles of the People’s Liberation Army crossing the border in the early hours of July 1, 1997 in the pouring rain; the last British governor sailing away; the chicken cull to deal with bird flu (remember the CNN film of chickens struggling in plastic bags while hungry dogs tried to break them open?); and the East Asian economic crisis.

Around that time, a representative of Fortune magazine was passing through Hong Kong on his way to another city in Southeast Asia, hoping to negotiate a contract to host the 2001 Fortune Global Forum. The event in those days was annual, alternating between Europe and Asia, and had been held in several cities around the region but never before in Hong Kong.