Mr. Joseph Ho, President of the Cosmetic & Perfumery Association of Hong Kong, holds several beauty professional qualifications and training professional qualifications. He has also won the Outstanding Member Award and the Outstanding Instructor Award from Junior Chamber International.

Mr. Ho got his master degree in Business Administration from Hong Kong Polytechnic University and started his career in banking industry. He joined the Hong Kong branch of a British bank with a bright future ahead of him. However, when the financial crisis came, many foreign banks had to lay off employees to survive. Mr. Ho was unfortunately one of those employees. He then somehow had the chance to join a career forum and learned that the commodity curve of beauty products is always moving upwards, yet the beauty industry have a bright prospect. He quickly decided to join the beauty industry and started up his own beauty products agency company. The company developed smoothly, and soon Mr. Ho opened a beauty salon, and set up factories in China. Now, He is the agent of a number of foreign well-known beauty brands.

The Ever-Changeful Hong Kong Beauty Industry

Mr Ho has witnessed the development and changes of the beauty industry in Hong Kong in the past thirty years. In early years, the beauty industry was led by the pharmacies, those selling brand-named products were the leader of the industry. After the emergence of Sasa cosmetics, the industry was dominated by the sales channels, companies had to rely on retail stores to sell their products. Until now, the most important thing is the profitavle business model. Other than Sasa, the market in Hong Kong is also shared by many beauty companies with innovative business models. The Beauty Industry in Hong Kong now has a great diversity, involving retailing, product development and production, beauty services and beauty training. Some local brands even started to grab attentions in recent years, their products are designed and produced locally by Hong Kong people.

Freedom is the Unique Advantage of Hong Kong Market

Mr. Ho believes that the Hong Kong beauty industry has its uniqueness. He said that the Hong Kong market enjoys relatively more freedom than that of other countries. Since importing of goods does not require any tests, a huge number of brands of beauty products can be found in Hong Kong. This helps the formation of benign competitions which stimulates improvements of the whole industry. He also pointed out that Hong Kong is the largest beauty information exchanging platform in Asia. The international beauty exhibition held in Hong Kong every year is one of the largest beauty exhibitions in Asia, providing local and foreign brands an effective platform for development and promotion.

The Biggest Obstacle: Conservative Government Policies and Lack of Supervision

He pointed out that the biggest obstacles of Hong Kong beauty industry is that the government’s conservative policies which lack of an overall blueprint and development vision for the whole industry. The Government has not set up any standards for medical beauty services, resulting medical practitioners’ qualification quite doubtable. As a result, business standards are only set by individual businesses. Their views are narrow and can barely trigger the healthy development of the whole industry.

Setting up of the Association Promotes Development of the Industry

As the Government’s supports are insufficient, the Cosmetic & Perfumery Association of Hong Kong has been promoting the development of the industry. Established in 1980, the Cosmetic & Perfumery Association of Hong Kong aims at helping practitioners to promote business, collecting industry views and reflecting opinions to the relevant departments. The Association is now ready to enter the Southeast Asian market. It also created a “high-quality fashion square” radio, which interviews the quality of business, shares the successful experience. In addition, it has organized different kinds of workshops to enhance the member’s’ skills and to nurture more latent in the industry.