HONG KONG, Jan. 18 (Xinhuanet) -- Deteriorating air quality in Hong Kong will drive away potential investors and thus threaten the city's competitiveness as Asia's free trade center, expatriate businessmen here warned on Wednesday.

    "If intellectual property piracy is stealing goods, our poor environment is stealing our health and our future," said Steve Marcopoto, president and managing director of Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific, Inc.

    "The 'Death of Hong Kong' may...(result) quite literally from the air we breathe," he said in his inaugural speech as 2006 chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong (AmCham).

    Having widely consulted with its members, most American businessmen in Hong Kong, the chamber set poor air quality and intellectual property piracy as two priority issues to work on.

    Describing air pollution as an issue of "a sense of urgency," Marcopoto announced that the AmCham was setting up a special task force to study how best to apply the private sector's influence to improve the environment.

    "If pollution control is not improved, it may undermine Hong Kong's competitiveness," warned a statement issued by the AmCham, which represents the 55,000-strong American community in Hong Kongand employers of an estimated 250,000 people here.

    Marcopoto noted environment influence has been counted into thecost of large international corporations when they try to set up aregional center in Asia.

    Though no trend has been detected that investors are moving outof Hong Kong for poor air quality, the issue has become a major concern of expatriate employees, said Marcopoto.

    "People start to think twice before moving their wives and children to a place heavily polluted," he told reporters, saying there are many good places in the region.

    Though emissions of three major pollutants -- nitrogen oxides, respirable suspended particulates and volatile organic compounds -- have dropped since 1997 in Hong Kong, the city still suffered low air quality, according to data provided by the Environment Protection Department of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).

    The levels of a fourth pollutant, sulfur dioxide, has risen by 41 percent.

    In September 2005, the department issued warning of worst air quality, advising people with heart or respiratory illnesses to avoid outdoor activities when a pollution index reading reached 168 by a 200 standard.

    The authorities have taken actions to improve air quality, including limiting the use of gas type of the city's bus and conducting air quality check with the mainland authorities around the Pearl River Delta. Enditem