Companies Registry

The Companies Registry administers and enforces the greater part of the Companies Ordinance. The Registry incorporates local companies, registers oversea companies, registers documents required to be submitted by registered companies and provides facilities for the search of company records. It also administers and enforces several other ordinances including the Trustee Ordinance, insofar as it relates to trust companies, the Registered Trustees Incorporation Ordinance and the Limited Partnerships Ordinance. The Registry is also responsible for a wide range of legal, policy and regulatory issues. In this respect, it is playing an important role in the Companies Ordinance and Corporate Governance reviews.

Since 1993, the Companies Registry has operated as a trading fund department. As a trading fund, the Registry can keep most of its income and apply it flexibly, having regard to its needs, business turnover and its customers' demands and expectations. The 2000-2001 financial year saw a moderate growth in business volumes in its core services and the department achieved a surplus of $42 million. Over the past years, the Registry has built up a healthy level of financial reserves which will help finance its expenditure on capital projects in order to improve the quality and efficiency of its services.

The Registry has taken action to implement a Strategic Change Plan (SCP) developed in June 2000 to transform the department from a largely paper based to a fully computerised operation by late 2004. The implementation of the SCP will re-engineer the department's business processes, bringing significant improvements in service delivery and substantial benefits to the business community. The Registry is committed to implementing the key initiatives and recommendations set out in the SCP. A core initiative is the development of an Integrated Companies Registry Information System (ICRIS) in two phases to replace the existing computer systems and enable the delivery of high quality and electronic services in filing, processing, and searching documents or information. The feasibility study for the ICRIS was completed in May and the tendering exercise to implement the system is under way.

In 2001, 38 258 new companies were incorporated. During the year, the nominal capital of new companies registered totalled $241.72 billion and 5 510 companies had increased their nominal capital by amounts totalling $431.4 billion. At the end of the year, 510 380 local companies were on the register, compared with 511 503 in 2000.

Companies incorporated overseas must register certain documents with the Registry within one month of establishing a place of business in Hong Kong. During 2001, 812 of these were registered. At the end of the year, 6 457 companies were registered from 79 countries.