City Beat | After a bumpy start to 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ‘bottom-line thinking’ offers food for thought for Hong Kong officials
- The president has told officials to be vigilant for possible ‘black swans’ and ‘grey rhinos’
- The government here would do well to do the same for the city’s outlook
In a recent off-the-record media gathering with senior executives of a Shenzhen-based, but Hong Kong-listed, company with an international business portfolio, its founder shared with us his insights on China’s economy.
The highly respected mainland tycoon, who built his business empire from scratch in the early 1980s and is now one of the country’s most prominent pioneers in the private sector, told us it was natural for mainland China’s economy to slow down because there was no such thing as perpetual high-speed growth anywhere.
So he saw the latest official figure of 6.6 per cent GDP growth as a healthy adjustment, and suggested it could even drop to 5 or 4 per cent in the years to come. But he was not worried.
“Even if we lose the US market if the trade talks eventually fail – though we never want to see that happen – we’ll still survive,” he said. “My company has been expanding into Europe and we already see progress. Meanwhile, there is still great potential in the home market.”
A few days later, I had the chance to meet the chairman of a Hong Kong-listed international company, who shared similar confidence.
He said his group, which has a long history with both the mainland and Hong Kong, had witnessed many upheavals and undergone numerous bad times over the years, but had never given up.