Hong Kong needs to set up a good business management college, on a par with the business college in the University of Singapore, to fill the void of middle-management personnel that Hong Kong so desperately lacks.

Big companies, like HSBC and Swire, have go their own in-house training programmes to nurture promising staff for managerial positions. But for small- and medium-sized enterprises, we have to rely on the local employment pool to source our needs. I am sure many members are acutely aware that Hong Kong lacks good middle managers -- top management can always be recruited from overseas, but good middle management is still quite a rarity.

So it appears to me that our local education institutions are supplying labour trained in fields not relevant to our needs, which is a waste of government funds. As a result, despite being "trained," the unemployment rate in Hong Kong is still high, even though we still need more information technology and middle-management staff.

For such a business school or college, we should aim for excellence so that its graduates can service the needs of not just Hong Kong, but also those of the Asia-Pacific region.

We have the funds to recruit the best talent from the best business schools overseas to come to Hong Kong to teach. Further, I'm sure professors would be very interested to teach in Hong Kong as they are able also to observe on the spot the needs of the Asia-Pacific region, as this area will be the engine of future economic growth.

Susan Liang
Senior Partner
Susan Liang & Co., Solicitors

I am writing to thank the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce for organizing the recent working mission to Beijing.

Not only did I meet a number of key contacts, but as a member of the delegation I found the meetings with all of the high-level PRC Government officials and departments to be both interesting and informative. I learnt a great deal about what they were implementing now and also the plans that they have for the future. All of the officials were happy to discuss their areas of expertise with us and were more than happy to answer the questions we asked of them. I found the meetings with MOFTEC, the Beijing Vice Mayor and the PBOC to be of particular interest as the discussions with these areas were the most applicable to my work.

My only suggestion for future working missions is for them to last longer! I would like to have visited a few more key government agencies on the trip.