Cint, 7 August 2010
Hong Kong , Hong Kong 34°

HongKong Business

What news can I bring in this HongKong Blog? The crisis in HongKong looks long forgotten. It is more than a year ago that I wrote about the end of the crisis in this part of the world. Shops, bars, restaurants are all back to the normal routines. I don’t know how HongKong will develop in the shadow of growth of Shanghai as a World Financial Centre. In the end it can be positive or negative for HongKong as a bilingual trading place between the China and the West. Although the English in Shanghai is getting better and in HongKong is not. Many Mainland Chinese spend their holiday in the summer schools to learn better English. Meanwhile the people in HongKong love their Cantonese and have problems with the Mandarin. English is well spoken in this part of the world but don’t ask your taxi driver or waitress too many questions.

In this atmosphere I was surprised to hear about the local fear for a second dip in world economy. The big financial sector has stopped its expansion. They don’t fill up their vacancies, the salaries appear too high already and new investments are postponed for the time being. For my business the market is still very good and promising. The world wide demand for more control on the financial industry makes that the demand for risk management and actuaries keeps on growing.

I had three days filled with appointments. It is good that a part of my business contacts are friends as well so I can have relaxed and open conversations. I have to adept my strategy now the North Atlantic crisis changed my position in the business. The coming years my success will come from this part of the world. In between my talks I can login on a Wifi to read email, do some Facebook games, get my Blog and pictures right and so on. Walking to a Wifi spot I see that a part of HongKong is overcrowded for the yearly Book fair. I think there are over a million people. It is clear that they care for knowledge in this part of the world and just like on the World Expo in Shanghai they are willing to wait in long rows for hours to get it.