The Trade and Industry Department (TID) rolled out an enhancement to the Dedicated Fund on Branding, Upgrading and Domestic Sales (BUD Fund) today (June 27).
 
     The geographical scope of the BUD Fund has been extended with an addition of two economies with which Hong Kong has signed Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (IPPAs), namely Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.  
 
     "The enhancement launched will further support enterprises in making use of the better protection afforded by IPPAs to develop more diversified markets," a spokesman of the TID said.
 
     The geographical scope of the BUD Fund has been extended, in three phases since July 2021, from 20 economies with which Hong Kong has signed Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) to cover 37 economies (Note) with which Hong Kong has signed FTAs and/or IPPAs. 
 
     More details of the enhancement are available on the BUD Fund website (www.bud.hkpc.org/en).
 
     For enquiries, please contact the BUD Fund Secretariat (Tel: 2788 6088).
 
Note : Besides the two newly added economies of Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, the other 35 economies covered under the BUD Fund are the Mainland, New Zealand, the four member states of the European Free Trade Association (i.e. Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland), Chile, Macao, the ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (comprising Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam), Georgia, Australia, Japan, Korea, Austria, Belgo-Luxembourg Economic Union, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Ends/Monday, June 27, 2022
Issued at HKT 10:00

NNNN