Lai See | Bank account difficulties turning business away from Hong Kong

The website of InvestHK, which is the government's arm for encouraging businesses to set up in Hong Kong, greets visitors to the site with a banner headline that reads: "It's the right time to set up a company in Hong Kong."

It goes on to say: "Hong Kong is the number one business city in Asia. It is the perfect base for companies that want to do business in mainland China and across the region." True, but to set up a company you need a bank account.

If you speak to companies in the business of helping companies set up in Hong Kong they will tell you that trying to open a bank account for a small company has become a nightmare.

"Hong Kong is now the strictest and most difficult environment in the world to get a bank account," says Callan Anderson, the Hong Kong general manager of the Orangefield Group, an international company which specialises in corporate and professional services.

Vincent Bremmer, managing director of Orangefield in Hong Kong, says: "But from being very easy, they have gone to the other extreme."

What is even more galling for Hong Kong's business friendly reputation is that companies such as Orangefield and other professionals involved in providing corporate services such as setting up companies freely admit that it is much easier to set up a business and open a bank account in Singapore and other jurisdictions in the region.

"In Singapore the banks come to our office to open accounts for our clients," says Bremmer.