WHAT is the best job in Hong Kong at the moment? No, it's not selling anti-missile insurance to travellers to Taiwan, or even judging the Miss Hong Kong contest. Instead, if the flood of interest from senior government officials is anything to go by, it's running the Trade Development Council on a salary package of up to $3 million a year, with limitless opportunities for overseas travel and a guaranteed ticket on the through-train beyond 1997.
Executive Director Francis Lo Wing-chan steps down later this year and headhunters Russell Reynolds Associates have been hired to find a successor.
By all accounts, Secretary for the Civil Service Michael Sze Cho-cheung - generally believed to be top of Beijing's hit-list - was the first off the mark, privately expressing interest several months before the post was even advertised, in late June.
Now other senior civil servants have also thrown their hats into the ring including, according to the government grapevine, Secretary for Trade and Industry Brian Chau Tak-hay - although he angrily denies this.
In any case Mr Sze, a former Director of Trade, already seems to have the job sewn-up. The headhunters are said to have shortlisted him, and he is cheerily encouraging speculation that his days in government are numbered.
All of which is causing no small degree of annoyance over at the TDC, where they've yet to see the shortlist, and are only finding out who is on it through calls from the press.