Dear Friends:
I find there are only repeats in the New York Times of the day (09 03 2012): The IHT Rendezvous pages have a few very interesting blogs though not related to India. I am not interested in the percentages of women members in Chinese Corporates' Boards, but I do take interest in events taking place in places like Hong Kong and Singapore. And as I understand Government of India's new economic policy is Look East. -bhuban HONG KONG — Hong Kong considers itself — rightly — to be one of the most developed cities in Asia. It is a global banking and trading center. Its subway system is a dream. Its medical and education systems are on par with those of many a Western nation. On one front, however, the city has done a terrible job: Women still struggle to make it into the top echelons of Hong Kong’s business world, and the boardrooms of this city are still filled with, yes, men. The latest proof: A research report released this week by Community Business, an NGO, showing that women currently hold just 9 percent of the boardroom positions in Hong Kong’s leading listed companies. Okay, so that is better than the 5.3 percent figure in India, or the 6.9 percent recorded in Singapore, Hong Kong’s main rival for the crown of Asia’s leading financial center. But it’s a pretty miserable figure when you compare it to the United States (where the figure stood at 16.1 percent last year), Britain (15 percent), or Norway, where a whopping 40.1 percent of board positions are held by women. There are exceptions. According to the report, the top large publicly traded companies here, when it comes to female representation on their boards, are Hang Seng Bank which has five women on its board of 16, or 31 percent; Bank of China Ltd with four women on its board of 15, or 27 percent; and HSBC Holdings Plc with four women on its board of 17. But overall, the situation in Hong Kong has shown no real improvement in recent years. In 2009, the percentage of women on the boards of the largest companies here was — wait for it — 8.9 percent. This is odd, given Hong Kong companies’ appetite for profit. After all, there is plenty of evidence to show that gender diversity helps a company’s business performance. Jaspal Bindra, the Asia head of Standard Chartered (which sponsored the research) likes to say that the bank’s three growth areas are “China, India and women.” Social expectations, outdated employment conditions and outright discrimination combine to hold women back in this otherwise modern, dynamic and innovative city, experts say. Still, there is room for hope. Community Business and The Women’s Foundation, another NGO, arranged a meeting of some of the chairmen of listed Hong Kong companies on Thursday. The men (yes, men) present showed surprising openness to the concept of getting more women onto their boards, according to Shalini Mahtani, the founder of Community Business. “Hong Kong needs to get its house in order in the next 12 months,” said Mervyn Davies, a former chief executive of Standard Chartered who also helped prod British companies to start appointing more women. If Britain can do it, Mr. Davies said, “so can Hong Kong.” _______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
