Hong Kong Wants To Be World City

14 Feb 2013

Hong Kong is hoping to be `Asia's World City' and towards this end the authorities are taking the education route to achieve the status. While not much is being heard of Tokyo in similar context following the tsunami in Japan, closer home it is Shanghai that has thrown the gauntlet to Hong Kong regarding the world status. Therein perhaps lies the secret of Hong Kong's nursing the ambition.

Shanghai is the commercial hub driven by the Chinese dragon. There's no way for Hong Kong to dethrone Shanghai in commercial terms. The island state besides shows reservations to the Mainland even over such small things as Baby Milk Food. The Hong Kong authorities have somehow come to believe that they are strong in education.

Towards this end, Hong Kong has already increased the quota for non-island state students to 20% from 10%. While it's not hard to guess who would largely fill the quota because of proximity and other factors, the island state government is also allowing a plan to open a foreign university in Queen's Hill. The place is former Army barracks of the British.  Originally the area was to be allotted for housing development.