| Tripartite Forum 1999 |
| The Policy Adenda on Promotion of Services |
| 14 January 1999 |
Session D: Making the Non-Traded Sectors Tradable |
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Moderator: Mr Po Chung Panelists:
Themes:
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Brian Stevenson of Ernst & Young saw two aspects to being an international service centre. Bringing local expertise to bear by buying services companies – e.g. telecommunications, water and ports - was one way. The other was to bring people to Hong Kong, which needed encouragement through development of a broader infrastructure befitting a major cosmopolitan centre. He cited the need for more arts and entertainment attraction, the absurd non-use of the government stadium and the limit on runs now imposed by the Urban Council which deterred big budget productions such as Les Miserables from coming to Hong Kong. Po Chung who moderated Session D also emphasised the importance of things like the theatre. Now that Hong Kong was not as renowned for shopping as in the past, it needed new attractions to encourage business people to bring their wives.
Stanley Yip of the HKTA emphasised the export potential of the arts but felt this was given insufficient attention by the Forum as well as by the government. Institutional obstacles to development of cultural exports should also be explored as part of competition policy.
But it was left to Richard Wong over dinner to deliver the trump cards on the roles of the theatre, and gambling. He noted that in the heyday of opera in Europe casinos and opera houses were the same buildings run by the same people. He also contrasted Macau, with its gambling monopoly, with competitive Las Vegas.
On the issue of the competitiveness of tradeable professional services, Stevenson maintained that his own profession, accountancy, was both open and international. The legal profession was less so because law was more country specific and local knowledge was needed. The lawyers agreed.
However, there was mention of the high cost and slow speed of legal services due in part to the solicitor/barrister division. The high cost of medical services was also mentioned as deterring people from coming to Hong Kong to take advantage of local expertise. It was much cheaper to go to the US or Australia. The reasons for this, such as specialists’ fees, were not explored but there was some support for making local people pay more for treatment to reduce the cost to the Hospital Authority which might lower the cost of private care.
The issue of access for the professionally qualified and recognition of foreign and mainland qualifications was touched on. Michelson urged more progress to open up professional licensing at least to those qualified in OECD countries. Implicit in the professional access issue were apparent tension between Hong Kong’s internationalist, local and Chinese national identities.
This tension was a sub-text in all the lengthy discussion of educational issues. Po Chung set it off by describing the value of the schoolday links formed with overseas Chinese he met at St Stephens College. Few now came to Hong Kong for secondary education while many Hong Kong people went overseas. The issue was somewhat submerged by tertiary education issues but cost, language, different curriculums and lack of boarding schools were all cited as barriers. It was generally agreed that the government should make some free places available for foreigners at local schools.
The internationalisation of local universities was debated at length. Although, according to an Asiaweek survey, they had a high reputation in the region more could be done to make them more of a magnet for researchers and teachers from abroad as well as attract first degree students now going from southeast Asia to the US, Canada etc.
Education was a tradeable commodity, noted Open University Council Chairman Charles Lee. The UK for example was making billions of dollars a year from it. International links could be strengthened by offering scholarships and providing cheaper accommodation. Local standards of English were mentioned on several occasions as a barrier to attracting foreign students and top rated academics – despite the high salaries.
However, some saw the salary problem not in terms of cost but of inflexibility. The “one size fits all” method of paying teaching staff was a barrier to hiring the best in disciplines where excellence was scarce and the private sector a direct competitor. Enoch Young of Hong Kong University however felt the lack of incentive was at the university management level.
Richard Ho from City University gave a different slant to the theme. “Learning is necessary but professors are not”, he suggested. The applied to shops and brokers. The e-commerce revolution was making physical presence less necessary. Asia was a latecomer in this respect. However as Asia was a latecomer it could leapfrog by investing in the infrastructure now to provide integrated multimedia learning. It was lagging behind Singapore which had linked up with Europe’s INSEAD and universities such as Stanford which were offering e-commerce degrees.
However it was noted that some things were happening in Hong Kong, notably a City University/Hong Kong Telecom venture to provide electronic MBA teaching. Copyright of teaching materials were sold to the University by the staff. Such academic entrepreneurship was the exception not the rule. Ngok Lee of the Vocational Training council blamed the fact that 440 courses were being offered in Hong Kong by foreign institutions on lack of part time programmes being offered locally. There was no pressure to make money. The Open University was active on the mainland. But was it making money from this? Po Chung mentioned the success of the Heriot Watt self-learning MBA, and the Africa-wide distance learning provided by NUSA (the National University of South Africa)
Richard Ho blamed Hong Kong’s tendency to import rather than export education not on price or quality but “mindset”. Richard Wong noted that public provision of tertiary education ensured quality but lacked market orientation or concern for productivity. Teaching was little different from in the days of Confucius. However, Government Economist K.Y. Tang reminded the audience that there was also a human dimension to education, involving group discussion and social interaction which could not be replicated electronically.
The issues of market-oriented universities, exports and China identity came together in the Open University. This University said Charles Lee had 24,000 students and relied on fees and ad hoc grants rather than subvention so it was market-driven. It was also active in the mainland, collaborating in teaching business administration with several provinces and cities.
It was generally agreed that there was a great thirst for learning on the mainland and Hong Kong was in a good position to take advantage of this by having materials in Chinese. However, exploiting the China market is easier said than done. Hong Kong institutions, it was pointed out, did not have free entry to the mainland, where universities had their own ambitions. As for mainland students, many wanted international, English-language based qualifications which were widely available from the US etc.
Indeed, poor English standards could be undermining Hong Kong’s tertiary standards just as poor Putonghua could inhibit ties with the mainland. Poor English explained why so many local students now went to international schools, despite the high cost. K.K. Yeung pointed to the need not just for English fluency but for language ability generally - Japanese, Spanish, German, Malay etc - if Hong Kong was to exploit its position as an international centre.
Education Department’s S.M. Tsui also emphasised the need to support foreign and international schools but also encourage local schools to develop their curricula to take account of diverse needs - such as returning migrants’ children. In the same vein, Richard Wong said foreigners should be given access to local schools which in turn should be encouraged to provide services and standards that would make them attractive to foreigners.
In sum, though there was clearly a lot that Hong Kong could do to sell e-based education, its development as an international learning centre needed to start - as Po Chung originally suggested - at the secondary level and needed, as City University professor Joseph Cheng suggested, a complete review of its goals, and of the structure of the teaching profession.
The discussions on education were both interesting and specific. They should provide plenty of food for thought, and a few immediately actionable ideas, for Donald Tsang. However, they took up so much time that they obscured the need for action in other sectors where services could be traded or competition increased. These sectors are not only more numerous but could yield more immediate business returns to Hong Kong than is possible in education.
