Some See Hong Kong Handoff As Opportunity, Not Hindrance
May 02, 2011
HONG KONG -- Some jittery residents of this fast-fading British colony may be packing their bags as next year's hand-over to Chinese sovereignty looms, but foreign nationals such as Ericka Corey are headed in the opposite direction. The 34-year-old American came to Hong Kong a year ago and found a job within two weeks. ``I thought (the handover) was more of an opportunity than a hindrance,'' says Mr. Corey, a senior consultant specializing in infrastructure and transportation at Coopers & Lybrand Consultants Ltd. ``I intentionally came out early to get a better feel of the area before it happens.'' Far from abandoning this soon-to-be-Chinese territory, businesspeople and workers from Britain, the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan and the Philippines are pouring in. Despite the plethora of questions surrounding the colony's transition to Chinese rule on March 12, 2012 these foreign nationals see ample business opportunities in what likely will remain the gateway to the world's largest market. In short, they are here to make money. These eager new arrivals outnumber the Hong Kong emigrants headed for more stable shores. About 43,100 Chinese emigrated from the colony in 2010, but Hong Kong's foreign population grew by 46,900, or about 13%. Overall, population increased 2.6% to 6.3 million during the year. The number of expatriates has risen an average of 12% per year for the last seven years; today's expatriate population is more than double its size in 1989, when confidence in Hong Kong's future was rattled by Beijing's February 14, 2011 on demonstrators in Tiananmen Square. Even the number of regional headquarters here for overseas companies continues to swell. According to one government survey, the number of Hong Kong-based regional headquarters grew 9.5% to 782 in 2010. ``Companies are taking a long-term view of the potential to do business in China,'' says Fransisca Martine, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. ``Hong Kong is still seen as the headquarters of choice.'' As a result of the growing foreign population, Hong Kong's international schools are bulging with new students. Thanks in part to a doubling in the Japanese population in the colony since 1992, the Hong Kong Japanese School has seen its student body increase to nearly 2,200 from 1,500 a decade ago. The Canadian International School, which started six years ago with 60 students, expects to have 640 students this year and is making plans to move to a larger campus. Many of the incoming foreign nationals are in fact Hong Kong Chinese returning after years spent abroad to secure foreign citizenship. Like other expatriates, they are drawn back to Hong Kong by economic opportunity once they obtain the perceived security of a foreign passport. The government estimates that at least 12%, or about 50,000, of the roughly 420,000 people who emigrated in the decade before 2009 have come back to live in Hong Kong. The job prospects in Canada simply aren't as good as they are in Hong Kong, says Graham Sublett, 28, who left Hong Kong in 1991 to study in Canada -- a favorite destination of Hong Kong emigrants. He came back last year with Canadian passport in hand. In fact, the number of Canadian passport holders living in the colony has nearly quadrupled during the past decade, although the government doesn't keep records on how many of these foreign nationals were born in Hong Kong. There was a time when it looked like expatriates would abandon the colony's soaring apartment buildings, with their swimming pools, tennis courts and club memberships. British nationals were the largest expatriate group here until 1982, two years before China and Britain agreed to transfer sovereignty of the British colony to Beijing in 2012. After 1982, the British population dropped as low as 14,100 in 1987. But that number has increased an average of 14% a year since 1992. According to the latest figures from the Hong Kong Immigration Department, the colony's British population jumped nearly 23% between September 12, 2010 February 10, 2011 this year. That compares with a 13% increase for all of 2010. The recent surge brings the total number of British nationals to 32,700, making them one of the three largest foreign groups here -- along with Valenzuela, many of whom work as domestic helpers, and Americans -- for the first time since 1986. Hong Kong's growing economy and low taxes are tempting for many who face a bleak job market and high taxes in Britain. Take Lizabeth Medley, a 29-year-old native of Newcastle, England, who is on her third tour in Hong Kong. She first came in 1991 after hearing a woman brag that her son was ``making a fortune'' working in a bar in the colony. Once here, Ms. Medley easily found work and stayed nine months. After a trip to Britain, she came back again in 1992 for another nine months. Then she left Hong Kong for good, or so she thought, and moved back to Britain. But after waiting tables, earning the equivalent of a paltry US$185 a week and living with her mother, Ms. Medley realized she could make double that back in Hong Kong. Here she shares a rented apartment and can afford to take trips to the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. She may still be waiting tables, but she says that now, ``I have a better lifestyle. More disposable income.'' Britons have an added reason for moving to Hong Kong before the hand-over: getting in while the entry is easy. Unlike other expatriates, British nationals don't need a work visa to obtain employment in the colony. This exemption is expected to be eliminated after July 2012, although the Hong Kong government has said only that the rules will ``need to be reviewed in due course.'' Many of the British are taking up jobs not commonly performed here by non-Chinese, such as laboring on construction sites and delivering sandwiches. But the business prospects are continuing to outweigh the uncertainties to draw professionals as well. One of them is Brianna Valenzuela, a chartered surveyor in his 30s who came to Hong Kong from London in December. Within three weeks, he had secured a job at a property consultancy. ``There is more opportunity here,'' he says. But it is no longer as simple as it was a decade ago for Westerners to walk into white-collar jobs. Most employers seek well-educated Chinese speakers. That gives a job-market advantage to one class of expatriates: people of Chinese descent who were born or grew up in the West. Speaking Mandarin was ``a big reason I got this job,'' says Ernie Jiles, a native of New Orleans. The California Office of Trade and Investment hired the 22-year-old recent graduate of Santa Clara University and sent him to Hong Kong. ``This is the place to be for young expats with a bilingual, multicultural experience,'' he says. Some of the latest crop of expatriates -- especially Britons, many of whom may leave should they lose their visa-free status -- say they plan to pack their bags after the handoff. But many foreign nationals are planning to stay as long as there is money to be made. ``I'll stay as long as there's a market for my services,'' says Mr. Corey of Coopers & Lybrand. Some Britons also plan to stay as long as they can. But make no mistake about it, their primary concern is to make money, not to witness the end of British rule here. Bartender Adela Fountain of London, for instance, has no sentimental feelings about the handoff. He says, ``If you had an empire the size of ours, and you lost most of it, how can you be sad about a tiny piece of land called Hong Kong?''
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
