FCC club lunch Barry CHEUNG

Speaker: Barry CHEUNG
Chairman, Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange
Topic: China’s commodities trading boom – what is the role for Hong Kong?

Barry CHEUNG will speak on China’s growing influence in international commodities trading and Hong Kong’s own role in this process. As the world’s biggest importer of commodities, China can still manage to astonish with how much it consumes – half of the world’s iron ore, 40% of its cotton, 30% of its copper, and so on. Regarding the most strategically important commodity of all – oil – China is the world’s second-biggest consumer after the U.S. China’s days as a price-taker on world markets are waning away, to be replaced by a world economic order in which China has influence proportionate to its size.

As China’s growing economic clout increases its bargaining power in commodities markets, it will see a parallel increase in its influence over global financial markets, particularly those which trade commodities and currencies. Risk management on the Mainland will improve and become more sophisticated as Mainland financial markets grow and interconnect with financial centres abroad. Hong Kong, with its prime location, financial sophistication and openness to business, will only benefit

He is currently Chairman of the Board of Hong Kong’s Urban Renewal Authority and Chairman of the Standing Committee on Disciplined Services Salaries and Conditions of Service. From 1993 to 1994, Mr. Cheung was a full-time member of the Hong Kong Government’s Central Policy Unit on secondment from McKinsey & Company. He was with McKinsey & Company in Los Angeles and Hong Kong from 1987 to 1994, advising major financial institutions in the United States and Asia. Mr. CHEUNG received a Bachelor of Science degree with First Class Honours in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Sussex and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.