Hong Kong - Still the No.1 Financial Centre in China?

HONG KONG –Still the No.1 Financial Centre in China?

Hong Kong has been a major financial centre in Asia for the past decade. Starting off as a fishing village, Hong Kong soon developed into a trading centre and then a financial centre. After overcoming a lot of difficulties, such as the handing over of Hong Kong in 1997, the 911 incident which caused the world’s stock market to fall by a landslide, Hong Kong is becoming increasingly prosperous. But with Mainland China’s accelerating economic growth, will Hong Kong be able to secure its position as the number one financial centre in China?

Just recently, Macau built a huge casino, the Venetians. It is said that it could hold ten times more exhibitions than Hong Kong’s Convention Centre. Workers have already started constructing to expand the Convention centre; however, will Hong Kong stand a chance when Macau has much more to expand than Hong Kong?

Meanwhile, Shanghai has invested 100 billion RMB into developing a cargo pier, and another 65 billion RB into developing an International Financial Centre (IFC) in Shanghai. Shanghai has also made future plans to hold the World’s Fair (2010 Expo), investing 250 billion RMB. People may say that Shanghai’s goal is to become the next Hong Kong, but looking at its footsteps, it is clear that Shanghai’s goal is to overtake Hong Kong and become the next New York.

Apart from the rising stars Shanghai and Macau, Hong Kong still has Singapore to deal with, who has been a long time competitor to us. Singapore has a well-developed economic