Financial Concerns
The history of business in Hong Kong, it could be said, is the history of Hong Kong. Yet it was only by the late 1960s that the business community appeared obviously distinct as a readership - and advertising - market. And so it was that in 1969, the Post got serious about creating a special desk for business reports and the Business News section was launched.
Keith Hooper was the person who got the section going, and two years later Malcolm Surry (1971-1977) became the first person to carry the title 'financial editor'.
'Hong Kong back then was a big port recovering from the riots of the late 1960s. Financially, it was a backwater,' Surry recalls. 'The beginnings of a market economy were built on plastic flowers and artificial wigs, which were the main exports. The stock exchange traded quietly with short hours and everyone snoozing.
'I was the first man ever hired to the business desk from London and after a few months we had four people. To begin with, the stories wrote themselves and copy virtually walked in the door. Back then personalities seemed larger than life, and we had the fortune of a lot of access to [then financial secretary] Philip Haddon-Cave.
'The main impetus for the economy picking up was when Ronald Li Fook-shiu set up the Far East Exchange in 1969 to challenge the HKSE', which had been formed in 1947 following the merger of two stockbrokers' associations.
Two other exchanges followed - the Kam Ngan Stock Exchange in 1971 and the Kowloon Stock Exchange in 1972. All four were later to merge. 'Kowloon Stock Exchange in Melbourne Plaza had so many visitors that the fire brigade closed it down at one point for fears the floor would collapse,' Surry recalls.