WHEN Sir William Purves left the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation after many years in Hong Kong, he made a speech to the local business community about what he thought the future held.
'He said that Hong Kong businesses must now learn to create products for the world market, and should not just let themselves be a manufacturing base for other people's products,' remembered S K Cheong, marketing and sales manager for Television Broadcasts (TVB).
For Mr Cheong, it was that comment which summed up most succinctly the reason that TVB has sponsored, and will continue to sponsor, the HKMA award for marketing excellence.
'Hong Kong businesses are very good at taking orders, but they can no longer rely on the orders coming in from abroad.
'Over the past few years, we have seen a great deal of competition, particularly in the areas of textiles, apparel and electrical goods, by manufacturers in other Asian countries,' Mr Cheong said.
He said that, with rising labour costs in Hong Kong, places like Taiwan, southern China, Thailand and Indonesia, were taking most of the manufacturing business away from Hong Kong . . . 'and now we have to think for ourselves - we have to be more and more entrepreneurial'.