Secretary for Financial Services & the Treasury Frederick Ma says Hong Kong's pool of hardworking financial talent is the key factor contributing to the city's success as a world-acclaimed international financial hub. The number of chartered financial analysts soared from about 200 in 1995 to more than 3,600 now, ranking first in Asia and fourth globally.

In his latest FSTB & You article on the bureau's website, Mr Ma said Hong Kong's talent has modern and global professional knowledge.

"This has been conducive to attracting capital and investors from around the world to make use of our capital market. At present, Hong Kong boasts more than 26,000 certified public accountants and 50,000 insurance intermediaries," he said.

Keen competition

Competition in the financial services industry has become increasingly keen in light of globalisation in recent years, making the nurturing of talent even more important.

To maintain Hong Kong's competitive edge as an international financial centre, the Advisory Committee on Human Resources Development in the Financial Services Sector was set up in 2000 to foster better co-ordination of efforts between the industry and academia on financial services manpower development.

Life-long learning

Noting the emerging economic importance of China and the rapid development of Asia as a whole have brought unprecedented opportunities to Hong Kong's financial services industry, Mr Ma called on young people to equip themselves fully by developing language and communication skills, broadening their horizon, committing to life-long learning and acquiring a mindset of "thinking outside the box".

"I am grateful to the committee for their efforts to promote the training of financial talent over the years, and hope that the Government, the industry and the academia will continue to make use of the platform established by the committee to actively promote the training of talent in support of the continued development of the financial services industry in Hong Kong," he said.