World Travel Guide

City Guide  - Hong Kong  - Business
Business

Business Profile

The mainstays of Hong Kong's economy are light manufacturing, shipping and financial services, as well as the property sector (of huge interest to locals, but little to outsiders). Property, through eminent houses such as Sun Hung Kai Properties and Kerry Properties, provides much of the investment funding to support Hong Kong's broader economy, although the sector itself has been static or contracting since the late 1990s. Hong Kong has developed into a major international financial centre. Banking, insurance and other financial services are provided to local and mainland firms as well as the many international conglomerates with offices there. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation is the strongest bank to originate locally, with an international presence; the Bank of East Asia is another notable bank. Jardine Fleming Bank, now in American hands, typified the financial legacy of the major English trading houses. Investment banking houses, such as Goldman Sachs and BNP Prime Peregrine, are also highly active locally. A large number of financial brokerage houses, many of them now going online, serve the insatiable appetite of the Hong Kong punter for short-term speculative investing, as well as a broader range of investment services.

Manufacturing is concentrated in textiles, consumer electronics and other consumer goods (Hong Kong is the world's largest producer of children's toys). The shipping industry is assisted by Hong Kong's natural deep-water harbour, probably the best in the region; maritime entrepôt trade is declining in importance, but is still very significant. Tourism has slackened since 1997. Hong Kong also provides films, advertising and other media services for Chinese and other markets across the Pacific Rim and elsewhere.

Hong Kong firms are often family-owned, the creations of commercial clans who came here from China and set up their businesses. The most admired businessman in the territory, who typifies the Hong Kong deal-making ethic, is Li Ka-shing, with a vast spread of interests in everything from the Panama Canal to the internet. It is symptomatic of Hong Kong's recent development that his son Richard, the creator of Pacific Century CyberWorks, is now creating Hong Kong's new web economy, with his purchase of the territory's former telecommunications monopoly Cable and Wireless HongKong Telecom. Hong Kong is now struggling to put the after-effects of the Asian economic crash behind it by repositioning itself as a wired city for the new millennium, a centre for internet-based telecommunications and web-related businesses and services, with the Pacific Century CyberPort development pioneering the initiative. It remains to be seen whether a Silicon Valley culture will take root in the old Hong Kong of property dynasties and sweatshop barons.

Business Etiquette

Suits are advisable for business; locals may wear short-sleeve shirts and preppy gear to work, but outsiders seeking to do business are not advised to emulate them. Hong Kongers are also not casual about business punctuality; appointments should be fixed in advance and kept to. The culture of business cards is as prevalent in Hong Kong as in Japan and, if possible, cards should be printed up with Chinese translations on the reverse. Most top hotels provide business centres for visiting business people, with typing, duplication, translation and other services. Normal office hours are 0900-1300 and 1400-1700 Monday to Friday, and 0900-1300 Saturday. Some Chinese offices open earlier than 0900 and close later than 1700. Although business lunches (especially dim sum) and after-hours drinking are a prevalent part of the Hong Kong business scene, there is not the same emphasis on drinking parties and bonding evenings as in Japan. Hong Kongers are too busy focusing on the bottom line to worry about company camaraderie. Ex-pat workers drink together hugely, but this is not a formal part of local business culture - just an unavoidable one.




Copyright © 2001 Columbus Publishing
    
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