The government of Hong Kong wants to try and rebuild the embattled image of the city and had reportedly got in touch with eight public relations firms for that purpose. However according ot reports, none of the firms were willing to accept the job.

There has been months of protests and demonstrations – some of which had turned violent, in Hong Kong as people took to the streets to demand more democratic rights and less interference in governance from Mainland China. And there has been wide criticism of the manner of handling of the issue by Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam and her government.

Lam told reporters that the PR firms said that “the time is not right” to try and rebuild and revamp the reputation and image of the territory. “At one point in time, we did have that idea of approaching some international PR firms to provide some advice,” she told a press conference.

“The advice we have been given is the time is not right, because we are still in this sort of social unrest, disturbance and violent acts and vandalism on such a regular basis. It would perhaps not be the most cost-effective way to use the government resources to launch any campaign to rebuild Hong Kong’s reputation. But sooner or later we will have to do it, because I have every confidence in Hong Kong’s fundamentals,” she said.

According to a transcript of an August address to business people as published by the news agency Reuters and which was leaked, Lam had said that the job had been turned down right away by four of the eight PR firms that had been contacted. A briefing with the Hong Kong government was arranged and the other four firms were then invited to participate in it.

The brief of the offer by the government as published in the PR industry paper The Holmes Report, said that the Hong Kong government wanted a firm to “address negative perceptions in key markets overseas to maintain confidence in Hong Kong”, and to “underscore the strengths and attributes that differentiate Hong Kong from other cities in the region and bring out the success of one country, two systems”.

However not one of the remaining four of the PR firms placed any bids for the contract of the government, said reports.

The government was criticized of attempting to develop a PR strategy “while the streets are on fire”, said a representative for one of these firms who had reportedly spoken to the publication.

The first protest in Hong Kong were started in June this year over a proposed bill that would have allowed extradition of people of Hong Kong to mainland China. The protesters had claimed that the bill was a gross violation of their human rights. Following weeks of protests, the Hong Kong government first postponed the bill and later withdrew it completely. However that was not enough to quench the anger of the protesters as their demands started to grow into a call for a wider restoration of democracy in the island city and greater autonomy from the Chinese government. The protests led to months of political unrest in the city which is considered the financial hub of Asia, diffusing business sentiments and impacting businesses including that iof tourism – one of the key industries for the self governed city.

(Adapted from BBC.com)

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