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Jake Van Der Kamp

The Immigration Department will demand full business plans from people applying for Hong Kong visas through a new investment scheme aimed at genuine entrepreneurs instead of stock market and property investors.
SCMP, April 29
Memo to the town council of Newcastle: Sirs, the next time you hear talk of someone bringing coals to Newcastle, you may point out that there is a better metaphor for adding to a surfeit - entrepreneurs to Hong Kong.
The bureaucrats in that tombstone block in Wan Chai have some other peculiar thoughts on the matter. According to our report, they wish "to attract more young talented professionals to replenish the declining workforce".
Given that juxtaposition to the word "young", I wonder if the reference is not to people in their supposed declining years. What might these be, may I ask? Call me declining, do you? See you around the back, raw knuckles, if you say it again.
But in terms of raw numbers, the Hong Kong workforce is actually growing quite handily at the moment, both in numbers of people and jobs found for them. No decline here.
Unemployment is also at rock bottom levels, 3.3 per cent. This figure in a wealthy society with public housing and social welfare represents the unwilling more than the unable.
Talk to restaurateurs and contractors if you think there is still a pool of able-bodied people who will take any job but cannot find one. Why make this problem worse?
And as to that bit about talented professionals, the cold statistics show that 28 per cent of employees in Hong Kong are degree holders, a ratio that has doubled in just 15 years. Thus, here is another coals to Newcastle line for you - university graduates to Hong Kong, ho-ho-ho, hee-hee-hee.
I can think of a third one as well - money to Hong Kong. The world is divided into providers and recipients of foreign capital and we are firmly in the provider class with a net international investment position (foreign assets less foreign liabilities) of HK$6.4 trillion, almost three times our gross domestic product.
So why are we pitching investors from outside? The game is that others pitch us for our money and talent, not the other way round.
We are the ones who fill the begging bowl, not the ones who hold it out for help. Our bureaucrats have it all back to front again.
But it's actually worse than that. This pitch to foreign investors actually puts stress on a very sensitive area of our economy at present.
A stock market rally fuelled by a flood of money from the mainland has pushed the Hong Kong dollar's market exchange rate right up against the Monetary Authority's intervention bid level of HK$7.75 to US$1.
At this level, the authority is obligated to buy up all the inflows to defend the peg against the US dollar. Over the last two weeks the intervention buying has amounted to almost HK$60 billion.
Yes, the authority can just print the money if it wants and does not have to get it from the market by issuing bonds. It certainly does not take it from you and it can keep playing this game for a very long time. If the inflow abates and the exchange rate goes back to HK$7.80, it even stands to make a profit from its dealings.
But let us not fool ourselves. This is still the sort of trend that brings the peg into question. Right now is just the wrong time to monkey about further with foreign investment, even with more emphasis on talent than on money.
Memo to the Immigration Department: Your job is not to promote immigration. Your job is to regulate it.
jake.vanderkamp@scmp.com


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Jake's View

Hong Kong thinking on bringing in entrepreneurs all back to front

Immigration Department's job is to regulate immigration, not promote it. Photo: Reuters

Business

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Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


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.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}Jake's View | Hong Kong thinking on bringing in entrepreneurs all back to front

Jake's View | Hong Kong thinking on bringing in entrepreneurs all back to front