Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Non-Fiction 2020 | Page 8

Non-Fiction – Group 2
How my family business benefits
My family has been running duty free product trading business in China and Thailand
for decades. Duty free is the zone between borders, and there are more than 100 duty free
zones within GBA.
My grandfather opened the first duty free store in 1979 in Shenzhen Luohu port. In its
first 35 years, LongTime was a mid-sized Hong Kong and Thailand company, but in 2018
things changed quite dramatically because of the opening of the high-speed rail between
Hong Kong and China and the Bridge between Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macau. It enabled
Daddy to move the warehouse to Zhuhai and also open an office in Shenzhen to improve
product finding and connect all high-quality factories in Shenzhen and Dongguan. Therefore,
the business has expanded quickly into a “Greater Bay Area” business with 4 offices in 2
years, while achieving higher revenues and lower costs. Hong Kong office remains to be the
headquarter with all finance and accounting and legal professional resources based in here.
LongTime will continue to grow rapidly to cover the 100 duty free zones in GBA, as fast as
the high-speed train!
You see how businesses can grow quickly through this GBA initiative, and how
infrastructure and technology enable my parents to manage their businesses outside of Hong
Kong while taking good care of me and my younger brother.
The Future and I
I imagine when I grow older I will go to Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Macau for a day
trip with friends for fun, cash-free carrying just our phone around to pay and commute.
There will be more cross border inter-school activities for cultural exchange in which I will
participate. My parents will continue to travel between cities as businesses continue to expand
all over GBA. In fact, Daddy is planning to open another office in Foshan because faster
ferries between Foshan, Hong Kong and Macau will be open soon. We can even afford a big
weekend home in Zhongshan, since Zhongshan’s home price is a lot cheaper than Hong Kong
and the 30-mins highway between Zhongshan and Shenzhen will be opened in 2024. When I
take over Mommy’s business in the future, I will take advantage of the GBA gateway to grow
the business to all over China so that everyone will own an Esemblē bag! I will open a shop in
Guangzhou since population is highest there. Everyone in GBA benefits out of it by bringing
the best out of each city together! How wonderful!
BBC.com, “Greater Bay Area: China’s ambitious but vague economic plan”,
26 February 2019
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SCMP.com, “Greater Bay Area: 10 facts to put it in perspective”, 1 April 2019
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SCMP.com, “Greater Bay Area: 10 facts to put it in perspective”, 1 April 2019
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