The provincial government of Guangdong will budget 2 billion yuan in the next two years to help Hong Kong and Macao-funded SMEs across the province weather the difficult time.

At a recent conference on the province's SME development, Governor Huang Huahua said Guangdong will adopt a series of measures to help the processing trade - especially those funded by Hong Kong and Macao investors - expand their businesses.

"The annual budgets of 1 billion yuan for 2009 and 2010 will be used to subsidize processing trade enterprises in their efforts to upgrade and to relocate them in parks for industrial transformation," the governor said. "Hong Kong and Macao-funded enterprises will be given priority."

Guangdong has about 1 million SMEs, many owned by Hong Kong or Macao investors, primarily involved in the processing trade.

The province saw a decline of capital inflows from Hong Kong from January to October this year due to the global financial crisis.

Yet investment in the tertiary industry rose in the past 10 months.

According to the statistics released by the provincial economy and trade commission of Guangdong, the province approved 4,479 Hong Kong-invested projects in the last 10 months, a decrease of 14.5 percent compared to the same period in 2007.

Tertiary industry projects numbered 2,797, an increase of 7 percent from a year ago, which comprised 62.5 percent of the total.

Source: China Daily