A land of opportunity

Hong Kong has moved from manufacturing to being a gateway to the East. 

Hong Kong is on an energetic, sustained and seemingly unstoppable roll. Its stock exchange, flush with new money from China and buoyed by the soaring confidence of local and international investors, is spiralling upwards. 

The fancy new shopping malls, with their rows of glamorous designer stores are doing a roaring trade; and tourists are arriving in record numbers, keen to sample the fabulous new hotels, or take in the wealth of new attractions such as Disneyland and the soon-to-open cable car ride to the famous Big Buddha temple. 

After a few short years in the post-SARS doldrums, the Hong Kong economy has got the wind in its sails once more - growth is high, inflation low - with a mood of innate confidence that is contagious. Visitors to Hong Kong are invariably awed by the sheer energy that throbs through the place day and night; it is a city proud of its can-do reputation and breathlessly frantic pace. 

And it is a place where people love to make - and spend - money. The mostly-Chinese population of this former British colony, which was handed back to China in 1997, make no bones about their fascination with the folding stuff. 

Restaurateur Harlan Goldstein, who was previously head chef of a high-rolling private club and now runs his own restaurants, can attest to how punters are splashing the cash. 

At Goldstein's eponymous restaurant, Harlan's, in the oceanside International Finance Centre mall, a group of 10 diners ran up a bill for US$28,000, the majority of it on fine wine. 

"We get the big, big shots here; anybody who is anybody in Hong Kong," claims the New Yorker, who recently opened another restaurant in the nightlife zone of Lan Kwai Fong. 

Much of the new dosh sloshing around the city has been generated by China-related trade. Hong Kong is the gateway to China, despite Shanghai's occasional fanciful claims to the contrary, and will remain so for many years to come. Hong Kong lies at the mouth of the Pearl River Delta, the most prosperous region of China, with its rows of gleaming new factories that produce electronic goods, computer chips and clothing at rock-bottom rates. 

Hong Kong does not actually manufacture much these days, concentrating on the provision of   services needed to take the goods to the rest of the world - shipping, insurance, financing and banking processes are all conducted in a transparent and efficient environment that is based on the British rule of law. 

It is that East-meets-West amalgamation, whether it is in the formal halls of business and law, where the Chinese judges still wear horsehair wigs, or watching a pyjama-clad granny chowing down a Big Mac, that makes it such an endlessly fascinating place.

Turn any corner and the chances are there will be an ironic, amusing or jaw-dropping scene to observe and behold the chicly-coiffured, Prada-wearing executive sharing the sidewalk with the old dear muttering imprecations to the spirits; a pin-striped banker slurping down streetside noodles with hard-hatted construction workers, as his chauffeured Mercedes limo stands by; Japanese office ladies queuing for English cream teas at the venerable Peninsula hotel; natural beauty at its most stunning, cheek by jowl with modern man's most creative and ambitious feats of engineering. 

Hong Kong can be seen at its colourful, noisy and risk-taking best at the twice-weekly horse-race meetings. They are attended enthusiastically by all stratas of society from the tai pans (big bosses) of the major companies, who arrive in Rolls Royces and entertain clients with champagne and gourmet food in private boxes, to the blue-collar workers on the terraces, who down chilled cans of lager and chomp chicken wings. 

The punters, rich or poor, gamble with a passion and intensity seen nowhere else on the planet: the annual turnover from horse racing   is a staggering US$8 billion. When former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping was negotiating the return of Hong Kong to China, he pledged that horse racing would be maintained after 1997 - along with the other key elements of Hong Kong's brazenly capitalist lifestyle. 

Gambling of a different kind takes place at the stock exchange, which recently eased past the 17,000 mark, with no signs of a slowdown on the horizon. Tourism figures are also on the up and up - last year more than 23 million people visited Hong Kong, more than half of them from mainland China. 

There is plenty to see, starting with the showcase airport at Chek Lap Kok, built in the typically aggressive, ambitious and large-scale Hong Kong manner. The entire project, that involved flattening an island, building a complete new transportation system of bridges, tunnels and railways, cost US$20 billion and was completed in five years flat. 

Another engineering marvel, located close to the airport, is due to open next month. The Ngong Ping 360 project will feature a cable-car ride that whisks passengers up to a Lantau island mountain plateau and on towards a theme village located close to the Big Buddha, the world's largest outdoor seated bronze Buddha statue. 

Also within easy reach the airport is the newly-opened Asia World-Expo convention and exhibition centre, just one minute away by rail, and the Disneyland theme park.

For visitors, there are new accommodation options galore, including the trendy Landmark Mandarin Oriental, right in the heart of downtown, and the Four Seasons, located a five-minutes stroll away, right on the waterfront. 

Later this year, the original Mandarin Oriental itself reopens after a US$140 million refit; across the harbour The Peninsula hotel has just spent US$6 million on a new spa, and the InterContinental has unveiled its presidential suite, at a price of US$10,000 a night.  For people who can't quite afford that price, Hong Kong has scores of other mid-market options, at wallet-friendly prices. 

All the hotels are likely to do brisk business in the coming years: the Hong Kong economy benefits from visitors who come specifically to experience the world's most exciting city and also from business people, and tourists, on their way to, and from, the world's fastest-growing nation, China. 

Hong Kong is, of course a Chinese city, a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, with a 6.97 million population that is 98 per cent Chinese. 

"I have been in Hong Kong for 36 years and every year it gets better and better and better," says Allan Zeman, the multi-millionaire behind the Lan Kwai Fong nightlife zone.

 "The country parks are Hong Kong's best kept secret. They have spectacular hiking and beautiful natural scenery. People immediately think about the shopping and how the city is quick, quick, quick; this is the other side.  Within 20 minutes of Central, or Tsim Sha Tsui, you can be in the parks, either in the mountains or on a beach."