Hong Kong has a deservedly high reputation as a great place to buy top-quality up-to-the-minute electronic goods at low prices. These items remain very competitive thanks to Hong Kong’s law taxation and proximity to the manufacturing plants in mainland China. According to the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, electronic exports accounted for 45 per cent of all exported merchandise in 2004, so we really are at the forefront of the latest technologies.

the most popular tourist purchases are digital still cameras, digital camcorders, mobile phones, DVD recorders, hi-fi equipment and MP3 players.

Here we look at portable buys du jour, to make sure you’re at the top of the technology chain.

Digitally Perfect

Not only can you buy things cheaply in Hong Kong, but you can sometimes take home merchandise nobody else will have, as brand new gadgets are often released in Hong Kong before reaching the US, Japan or Europe. The Cybershot digital camera series is one of Sony’s best selling items in HongKong, according to Phoebe Lam, a company spokesperson. In the shops now is the Cybershot DCP-T7. Priced at $3,990′ this is a supremely thin digital camera, with fast shutter speeds and accurate exposures. It was released in Hong Kong over a month before coming out anywhere else.