No doubt, many of us aspire to the Olympic goal of building a better world in a spirit of understanding, friendship, solidarity and fair play.

For the World Council of Credit Unions, the mission is to seek to improve the social development for all people through the provision of high quality and affordable financial services. I am confident that Hong Kong has an important role to play in helping to achieve this goal.

Allow me to give you a brief overview of credit unions in Hong Kong. I believe there is good potential for growth in this area. However, the development of credit unions here has been somewhat restricted due to the high concentration of banks and financial institutions, which offer a wide range of services.

At the same time, there are still 41 credit unions in the city, mainly composed of employees of Government departments, large corporations and members of neighbourhood organisations and local churches.

Local membership is about 66,000 with a total capital of about $5 billion. With a penetration rate of about 1% of the population, there is certainly room for the expansion of credit unions in Hong Kong.

Credit unions have also been spared the worst effects of the current global market turmoil brought on by the sub-prime lending problem in the US. Good governance, close relationship with members and the promotion of sensible use of credit are important factors.

Hong Kong is also in a pretty good shape, despite the global economic downturn. This is thanks largely to the resilience of our financial-services sector. Although we were hit hard by the Asian financial crisis a decade ago, our financial-services sector has rebounded strongly and remains one of the four pillars of our economy. It contributes around 13% of our GDP and about 180,000 people work in this sector.

Open markets, good corporate governance and a transparent regulatory regime are among our key attributes as an international financial centre. In recent years, Hong Kong has emerged as an important player in global round-the-clock financial trading.

This is partly down to good luck. We are in the right place at the right time. Our geographical location in the Asian time-zone, midway between the financial powerhouses of London and New York makes Hong Kong an ideal partner in today's 24-hour global financial network.

We do not rely solely on natural endowment. Our good fortune in time and place is combined with a great deal of hard work in producing the best possible investment environment.

We must be doing something right because, in the league of international financial centres, Hong Kong is ranked third by the Global Financial Centres Index published by the City of London Corporation. Only London and New York are ranked higher.

Hong Kong is also consistently ranked as the world's freest economy. The US-based Heritage Foundation has placed Hong Kong at the top of the league table for each of the past 14 years.

At the heart of our financial-services sector is the robust and vibrant stock market. Although we are a relatively small city with a population just short of 7 million, Hong Kong possesses the world's 7th largest stock market and 3rd largest in Asia by market capitalisation. Market cap at the end of May was more than US$2.3 trillion.

In terms of equity funds raised in 2007, Hong Kong was ranked 2nd in Asia and 5th globally with total funds raised at about US$9 billion.

Hong Kong is also a leading asset-management centre in Asia. The latest available figures show that our combined fund-management business amounted to about US$800 billion at the end of 2006, representing 36% growth over 2005.

Our decision to abolish estate duty and exempt offshore funds from profits tax since early 2006 has helped to attract foreign capital to Hong Kong and encourage investors to hold assets here.

Perhaps our biggest attraction for investors is a low and simple tax system. Top rates for salaries tax is capped at 15% and profits tax at 16.5%. There is no VAT, no GST, no capital-gains tax and only income sourced in Hong Kong is taxable here.

We are a safe, stable and law-abiding society. Since reunification with the Mainland in 1997, Hong Kong has retained the common law legal system based on the English system. Our judiciary is fiercely independent, and we take a zero tolerance approach to corruption. Our Independent Commission Against Corruption is highly regarded in the international community.

As well as ensuring a level playing field for entrepreneurs and investors, we are also diversifying our financial services. As China's most important city for global finance, we have an important job to do in more closely aligning our two financial systems. This will help us become a more efficient platform for inflows and outflows of capital across the boundary.

For example, since 2004 we have been developing Renminbi business in Hong Kong. Virtually all retail banks offer Renminbi services, and beginning last year, we became the first place outside the Mainland to have a Renminbi bond market.

We are continuing to develop Renminbi business in collaboration with our counterparts across the boundary.

Looking East, another relatively new and exciting area for us is Islamic finance. There is good potential for introducing Islamic financial products in Hong Kong and for developing a market for Islamic bonds or sukuk. The response so far has been encouraging.

Last November, a major local bank launched the first Islamic fund here. In six months, the fund had grown more than 10-fold since its launch with the size of the fund exceeding US$54 million by the end of April.

The investment holding arm of the Malaysian Government, Khazanah Nasional Berhad, issued an exchangeable sukuk of US$550 million in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in March this year.

It was the first sukuk offering exposure to China's growth through the Mainland equities listed on the local stock market. There was a good response from Middle Eastern investors - and the sukuk was over-subscribed by 10 times.

Financial Secretary John Tsang gave this address at the opening ceremony of the 2008 World Credit Union Conference.