Of Cabbages and Kings

On a crusade to find myself

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Mumbai.. the new HK ?

Its been 12 years since I have been coming to Asia for business. The region seems to be changing a lot over the last 12 years. In Hong Kong the change started around the handover of the region to China by UK. The country is now very Chinese-ised (if I may use the word). The only expatriate foreigners in the city seem to be from the financial industry. The amount of non-chinese that you see on the streets is also decreasing. Its becoming a very local town.
Singapore too seems to be peaking out in terms of prosperity. Could it be cultural reasons ? The compulsory military training seems to take 2-3 fruitful and productive years out of the Singaporean male's life. The women seem to move head in academics and life in general.. leading them to marry out of the local community.. The strong antiseptic atmosphere created by the government seem to cause an outflow of talent.
I think cities like Mumbai, Shanghai and Dubai seem to be slowly emerging as financial cities and seem to be slowly replacing HK and Singapore . If these cities manage to get their infrastructure in place, I would see them replacing HK and Singapore as financial hubs of Asia.

2 Comments:

Blogger Fanaah said...

Hmmmmm to all the cities Ive been:

HongKong-city of night lights, I felt a tad sad watching the british minister leave-they really did alot for it, infact everything that Hkg is-is probably because of them. Yeah Hkg will soon become very Chinese dominated.

Singapore-as a market I still think would have some time, but yeah its reached maturity-not saturation yet though-u know i wouldnt mind working there

Dubai- super nascent financial market.Dxb has money and infrastructure on its side though-but i still think it will take time.Take that from a person who lives here and tracks the total 28 stocks in their market.

Bombay-shes a dream really, the way that city functions remains an enigma. We've progressed so much, and yet some basics are so far behind esp like roads. Though I have to say our financial markets are one of the finest.

Id be happy to work in all 4 frankly, whereever life takes me.... :)

7:43 AM  
Blogger Fanaah said...

Lol my comment turned out to be as long your post!
Guess I get carried away writing :)

7:44 AM  

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