"Southeast and Northwest" change channels

Hong Kong, the port of spice? For a hundred years, the sea breeze of Tsim Sha Tsui has swept away the soaring aroma of "Guan Xiang". This "fragrant pier" in the Ming and Qing Dynasties has become one of the international hubs of commodities, capital, technology and culture. In the ten years since the return of Hong Kong, Hong Kong has gone a step further and grown into a "talent harbor" with a vast ocean.

Regardless of industry, color, or region, talents from all walks of life gather here and use this as the starting point, end point or turning point of their respective careers. Ieoh Ming Pei said: "Hong Kong is the crossroads of the world." In the past ten years, this intersection has experienced an unprecedented gathering of talents.

Excellent talents from the Mainland move eastwards

In terms of talent flow, the first major move after Hong Kong's return to the motherland was the "Introduction of Excellent Talents Program".

On February 3, 2000, the first "excellent talent" who benefited from the program went to Hong Kong from Shenzhen to work. He was one of the founders of the new "Shenzhen Speed". As a director of Hong Kong Construction (Holdings) Co., Ltd. and a doctor who enjoys special allowances from the State Council, Mu Shicheng invested in the construction of Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center as a general contractor, and completed the largest single building in Shenzhen within two years. Soon, Ren Zengyuan and Feng Youmin, who are also technical elites, also crossed the Luohu Bridge and came to Hong Kong to work.

Technical professionals like Mu Shicheng are the main force of Hong Kong's rebirth after the 1999 financial crisis.

At that time, Hong Kong had just emerged from the shadow of the financial crisis and began to transform into high value-added industries such as finance and technology. However, talent shortage has become a major problem in the transformation. According to a 1999 survey, by 2005, there was a shortage of 14,000 talents in the technology sector in Hong Kong and 16,800 in the financial services sector. To this end, the SAR government has resisted criticism and launched this talent introduction plan. Facts have proved that for every talented person imported, an average of 1.5 jobs will be added to Hong Kong society.

From then on, whether it is the "Mainland Professional Talent Entry Program" in 2001, the "Mainland Talent Import Program" in 2003, or the "Excellent Talent Entry Program" last year, the visible hand of the Hong Kong government has been for mainland talents. Go east and build a wider and wider bridge.

Over the past decade, policies have become increasingly flexible. The latest talent introduction plan stipulates that in a year or more, the introduced talents can settle in Hong Kong without being hired by a Hong Kong employer in advance. Earlier this year, pianist Lang Lang was the first to receive a Hong Kong identity card. Not only the mainland, but also talents from all over the world have come to Hong Kong from the south, east, and northwest of the world, constantly injecting new vitality into the "Pearl of the Orient".

The champions of the college entrance examination go south

Today, the history of the champions of the college entrance examination looking northward to Tsinghua University and Peking University is gone forever. Hong Kong universities, which seemed so far away yesterday, are attracting more and more top students to the south.

In September, more than 1,300 mainland students started their university careers in Hong Kong. They stood out from more than 30,000 applicants from the mainland. As in previous years, many of them will be the top candidates for the college entrance examination in their provinces and cities. From being unfamiliar to being widely recognized, Hong Kong colleges and universities have spent less than ten years in the mainland, almost synchronizing with the ten years of return. In 1998, the Hong Kong school commissioned Peking University, Tsinghua University and other ten famous mainland schools to recommend students to study in Hong Kong. In 2003, the Ministry of Education approved Hong Kong schools to recruit students independently in the Mainland. As of this year, 12 universities in Hong Kong have been approved to enroll students in 25 provinces and cities.

The one-in-a-million source of high-quality students has improved the overall quality of the school; mainland students from the traditional education system have also gained a different four years at the "crossroads of the world".

Yin Qing, a mainland student who is about to graduate from Hong Kong Baptist University, believes that "broadening of horizons and the cultivation of independent thinking skills" are the most valuable gains. In one of her elective politics classes, the American teacher asked all students to play a member of the United Nations, a non-profit organization or a business organization. So each class becomes a meeting of students to debate and make decisions again and again. Undoubtedly, the internationalization of students, teachers and teaching mode is the trump card of Hong Kong schools.

The admission of mainland students to Hong Kong universities is not only a win-win for both teaching and learning, but also benefits for Hong Kong and the companies based there.

According to the statistics of the Hong Kong Education and Manpower Bureau, more than 60% of mainland graduates have stayed in Hong Kong for further education or employment. Their jobs include finance, tourism, advertising, accounting, etc. It is no accident that such fields are the sunrise industries in Hong Kong. When the local famous schools are nervous about the "pinching" of Hong Kong schools, the major cities in the mainland also need to reflect on their own talent strategies.

The phoenix returns to the nest and goes west

The water flows eastward, and the people walk westward. After ten years of returning to Hong Kong, we have witnessed the flight of foreign talents to the southeast and the return of local talents. It is a kind of weather vane, proclaiming the power of the economy and the heart.

The immigration wave before 1997 affected every Hong Kong family more or less. Canada, the United States, and Australia on the other side of the ocean have become the preferred countries for immigration. Soon, they watched across the sea and found that Hong Kong was not as "Hong Kong is dead" as "Time" magazine proclaimed. The financial crisis and the SARS epidemic are not the end of Hong Kong, but a new starting point for Hong Kong. In particular, the vigorous development of the financial and technological industries has provided Hong Kong people with broader development opportunities than those in Europe and the United States.

There are data to prove it: In the year before the handover, there were 40,300 Hong Kong people who immigrated overseas. In 2005, the number had dropped to 9,800. At the same time, Hong Kong immigrants are returning at a rate of dozens of times, known as "phoenix returning to the nest".

On the east coast of the Pacific Ocean, the economy is developed and stable, but there are invisible ceilings for employment and promotion; on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean, the economy is still developing and growing at an alarming rate, providing more space for Hong Kong people who are familiar with Eastern and Western cultures. According to Li Yanhua, president and executive director of Hong Kong Huizhicaijun International Company, this is an inevitable trend. In recent years, Hong Kong's financial and technology industries have often struggled to find suitable talents, and Hong Kong immigrants have both domestic and overseas work experience, so they can fully display their talents here.

A survey conducted by the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department at the beginning of this year showed that the average annual salary growth in Hong Kong in the past ten years has reached 1.6% in real terms, and the financial and insurance industry has even increased by 2.5%. In addition, mid-level managers saw the highest salary increases, averaging 2.7% a year.

It is not too late for Hong Kong immigrants to return to Hong Kong when they are over 40 years old. Mature management experience can become their job-hunting weight; and second-generation immigrants who grow up and study abroad can also find opportunities in Hong Kong. Workplace experts say that in Hong Kong, they don't have to break away from familiar Western culture, and they can get a close look at the rapidly changing East.

Hong Kong people continue to go north

If immigrating overseas is OUT (outdated), then going north to the mainland is IN (popular). In the ten years since the return of Hong Kong, this trend has intensified and shows no sign of subsiding.

In Beijing, 24-year-old Xu Jiarong squeezes the bus to work every day, working hard for his first job; in Shenzhen, 46-year-old Chen Qinye also rarely rests on Sundays, teaching his daily quality management experience in university classes; In Shanghai, Yin Zhantang, who knew the destiny, continued to change careers and entered a new human resources consulting industry.

These three Hong Kongers of different age groups are just a microcosm of the northern tide. However, the trend that began in the 1980s has now been branded with the stamp of the times.

In the beginning, most people in Hong Kong went north with funds to set up factories. It was not so much the flow of talents as the flow of funds. Since the early 1990s, multinational companies have developed their businesses in the mainland, and the company's employees in Hong Kong, especially the management, have gone north. After 1997, professionals have become the main force of going north, especially in the financial and creative industries. The provisions of CEPA in 2005 have allowed Hong Kong people to register individual industrial and commercial households in the mainland, further broadening the way for Hong Kong people to travel north.

Economic development and talent flow have always been in direct proportion. Hong Kong people heading north, like mainland talents in Hong Kong, are being integrated as an organic part of their respective economic development. Ultimately, the localization of talents in Hong Kong and the internationalization of talents in the Mainland will surely lead the take-off of China's economy in the new century.

The author is an associate editor of the World Manager website.