BEIJING // When Naomi Wu was a teenager, she and her friends would ride the train from mainland China to Hong Kong several times a year to shop for clothes and designer handbags.
But the 23-year-old computer programmer, who lives across the border in Shenzhen, now shuns a city that two decades after the handover from Britain has lost its allure for many mainlanders.
“Chinese gadgets are as good or better than foreign,” said Ms Wu, who prefers to shop online from her home in Shenzhen, which has transformed from a shabby backwater into an industrial powerhouse.
“There’s lots of new malls that are well-designed, and new buildings everyplace else. There are new subway lines and lots of parks. Shenzhen built more skyscrapers last year than US and Australia combined,” she said.
As Hong Kong gets ready to mark the July 1 anniversary of the handover, it is increasingly eclipsed by China, which has become a global superpower with a vibrant consumer and cultural scene of its own.
Beijing and Shanghai boast a sophisticated array of bars and restaurants as well as sprawling shopping centres and arts districts that put space-starved Hong Kong to shame.
China has leapfrogged from seventh to second place among top economies since 1997 and become a vital engine of global growth, while Hong Kong has fallen from 24th to 33rd.
Import taxes on foreign goods are still much higher in China, but shoppers who once flocked to luxury flagship stores along Hong Kong’s glittering Canton Road are now also heading to cities such as Paris and New York.
The changing fortunes have seen the number of tourist visits from the mainland to Hong Kong steadily decrease, dropping nearly seven per cent in 2016 compared to the previous year.
Disneyland opened in Shanghai last year, attracting millions as visitor numbers sag at its older sister theme park in Hong Kong.
And Hong Kong’s waning cultural clout has also seen it disappear from mainland screens which it dominated during the “golden age” of Hong Kong cinema in the 1990s.
“Hong Kong films and Hong Kong music have faded from our lives, and there is a variety of mainland-produced music and shows,” said Li, a trading manager at a state-owned enterprise who declined to give his full name.
“China’s rapid economic development has greatly reduced the gap between the mainland and Hong Kong.”
As the scales tip, there is growing resentment in Hong Kong over the perceived “mainlandisation” of the city as China extends its influence in a range of areas, from business to politics, education and media.
Some see this as a way for Beijing to tighten its grip on Hong Kong and erode the city’s identity and cherished freedoms – fears reflected in mass student-led rallies calling for democratic reform in 2014.
One of the results is that the mainland tourists who continue to visit Hong Kong do not always feel welcome. Ms Wu was shocked to hear open criticism aired on the subway during a recent visit.
“Mainlanders go to Hong Kong and spend lots of money, but then get sneered at for our trouble. I speak Cantonese, and they are still rude to me,” she said, referring to the variant of Chinese spoken in the city.
Manners have long been a source of tension, with Hong Kongers complaining about what they see as the unrefined social habits of their “nouveau riche” mainland counterparts.
The growing tension is a hot topic on China’s internet forums.
On Zhihua, a question-and-answer site, nearly 1,400 people posted responses to the question: “Fewer and fewer people go to Hong Kong to shop. Why?”
“I loved the shops and restaurants, the public transport was so convenient ... and people were very friendly,” wrote Jennifer Liu.
“But the last time I went there was a very different atmosphere ... on the streets, young people would glare at me,” she added. “Since then, the news I see from Hong Kong is very strange to me, full of hostility.”
But mainland Chinese still lack the personal freedoms enjoyed in Hong Kong, which remains semi-autonomous under the “one country, two systems” deal agreed before the handover.
Thousands make the move to Hong Kong each year to pursue higher education and work opportunities, and the city’s red-hot property market is fuelled by Chinese seeking a place to park their cash.
That is part of an exodus of those with the means to secure property and passports abroad, in search of cleaner air, safer food, and better opportunities.
“Hong Kong’s attractiveness to the mainland Chinese is in decline, but many people still want to go to Hong Kong for education because they feel it is safe there,” Qiao Mu, a media studies scholar in Beijing, said.
“They still long to live in a society that is free.”
* Agence France-Presse
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BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE
Starring: Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton, Jenny Ortega
Director: Tim Burton
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What is a calorie?
A food calorie, or kilocalorie, is a measure of nutritional energy generated from what is consumed.
One calorie, is the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water by 1°C.
A kilocalorie represents a 1,000 true calories of energy.
Energy density figures are often quoted as calories per serving, with one gram of fat in food containing nine calories, and a gram of protein or carbohydrate providing about four.
Alcohol contains about seven calories a gram.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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The Perfect Couple
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Jack Reynor
Creator: Jenna Lamia
Rating: 3/5
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Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
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