History has shown time and again that adversity brings people together, and at no time in Hong Kong's history has this adage rung truer than during the recent SARS crisis.

The ordeal with atypical pneumonia has even dealt Hong Kong a couple of positives, says PCCW Chairman Richard Li.

"One is that Hong Kong has emerged from the crisis with a sense of purpose; a unifying cause ... . And the other is that the eyes of the world are on us; watching to see what Hong Kong will do," he told the 400-plus audience at the "Business After SARS" Conference on June 7.

Although the crisis failed to undermine Hong Kong's position as the premier international business centre in Asia, Mr Li warns we cannot afford to take our pre-eminence for granted. We must continually upgrade the range and depth of our financial services, adhere to light-handed regulation that protects the public without deterring investors or slowing market expansion, and continue to stick to our business-friendly fiscal and budgetary policies.

The quality of Hong Kong's workforce has been a key driver of the economy for decades. "The pneumonia outbreak was a bigger threat to Hong Kong than any of the wars, revolutions, bank runs and market collapses of the last half century," Mr Li said. "We survived because of the quality of our people."

As such, Mr Li suggests that to reinvigorate confidence among Hongkongers, the term "Made in Hong Kong" be revisited in a new spirit. "We should tell everyone around the world -- as I do -- that, 'We are made in Hong Kong and we are proud of it!'" he said.

Peter Wong, Director, Standard Chartered Bank, also said that a positive attitude and motivation are crucial for Hong Kong to recover quickly from the crisis.

He has no doubts that the economy will fully recover from SARS, because as Hong Kong has shown in the past, it is a very resilient economy that emerges stronger from every challenge. But as Hong Kong is still suffering from the aftermath of the financial crisis, 45 months of deflation and now SARS, these very painful adjustments have prompted a lot of criticism.

"What Hong Kong needs now is not criticism, but motivation," he said. "We should have stronger and tougher reactions to those who are constantly criticising Hong Kong without a single, constructive recommendation."

Hong Kong is not alone in its economic restructuring. Other Asian economies are also facing hard times. But the way the community in Hong Kong has pulled together in these times of difficulties is one of the more positive aspects that has come out of the SARS crisis, he said.

Patrick Wang, Chairman & CEO, Johnson Electric, said he applauds initiatives to attract tourists, encourage residents to go shopping and to dine in restaurants, but he said more should be done to develop and promote Hong Kong's role as the key interface between China and global economy.

"We should be careful to avoid marketing Hong Kong as essentially a tourist and consumer economy and overlook the importance of manufacturing and trade," he said.

With Hong Kong-owned factories employing about 11 million workers in the PRD, the territory's role as the bridge to China cannot be overstated, he said. But there is a risk of trying to promote Hong Kong's recovery as separate and independent from that of south China.

"The first people who will start to come back to Hong Kong are business people," he said. "These people will play a critical role in getting the news out to the rest of the world that Hong Kong and south China remain open for business."

James Hughes-Hallett, Chairman, John Swire & Sons (HK), echoed those comments and added that SARS had almost no impact on cargo demand. Even at the height of the crisis, the volume of air cargo movements grew 3 percent.

"Production facilities in south China and the PRD are still running smoothly, as are the transport links to air and marine cargo hubs," he said. "Hong Kong, even during the peak SARS crisis months of March, April and May, was still the world's busiest international cargo hub."

To encourage people to travel, Mr Hughes-Hallett said Cathay Pacific has been offering very attractive fares. With travel restrictions against Hong Kong now lifted, he said he is confident that there will be a steady pick up in outbound passengers and a full recovery within the third quarter. However, he expects it will take somewhat longer for the inbound and long-haul markets to recover.

Plans are in hand for Cathay to co-operate with the Hong Kong Tourism Board, and Invest Hong Kong to initiate and lift advertising campaigns to explain the situation now that travel alerts affecting our neighbours have be lifted.

Despite the battering that SARS put Hong Kong through, Mr Hughes-Hallett said Hong Kong's unique strengths, that we sometimes overlook, are the very qualities that constitute to Hong Kong's unique role as Asia's leading aviation and logistics hub, and helped us emerge from SARS quite unscathed.

Alasdair Morrison, Chairman & CEO, Morgan Stanley Asia Pacific, said SARS has clearly affected economies around the region, in particular the travel and tourism related industries. But generally, financial markets, which declined during April, have now recovered to pre-SARS levels.

"Overall, clearly Asia-Pacific is surviving SARS," he said.

China, whose losses in GDP will be off-set slightly by the fall in the exchange rate of the US dollar, continues to grow at a phenomenal pace.

"Currently a US$1 trillion economy, my colleague, Andy Xie, believes that China could be the next US$10 trillion economy in a 15-20 year timeframe," he said. "A major driver of this growth is China's stunning export performance -- up 20 percent in 2002 (to US$320 billion) and up 30 percent in the first four months of 2003."

Hong Kong not only benefits from the physical logistics of these cargo flows but also has a key role to play in turning China's phenomenal income creation into wealth creation.

Mr Morrison also feels that the SARS experience has acted as a catalyst for change in Hong Kong and that there is a greater community acceptance that some things have to be done differently.

"But change has to be substantive," he said. "As a Roman historian once perceptively wrote: 'There is nothing like change for creating the illusion of progress'."

From an economic perspective, one fundamental change needed in Asia is to wean ourselves off over-reliance on the U.S. market and consumption by Americans, he said.

Morgan Stanley's Steve Roach talks about the need for "global rebalancing." In the seven years to 2002, the U.S. accounted for 65 percent of the growth in global GDP, twice its proportion of that GDP. Soon the U.S. will require US$2 billion investment each day from overseas to fund the ballooning trade deficit.