Now this is great news (from China Briefing):

The local government is set to launch a program that will give foreign finance specialists incentives to work in Shanghai including lowered taxes, reports Shanghai Daily. The financial talent award is just one of the government’s policies aimed at turning Shanghai into an international financial and shipping hub by 2020.

I have an even better idea. Let’s dismantle Beijing’s Financial Street, close all the financial service firms’ Beijing representative offices, and ship all their staff to Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Yes, there will be negative repercussions on the Beijing economy. A few Starbucks outlets will no doubt close. There will be a drop in demand for mobile phones and Blackberry-ish devices, as the finance types at a minimum must have:

1. Mobile phone for China;

2. Blackberry with China data plan;

3. Hong Kong mobile phone;

4. Blackberry for Hong Kong;

5. Mobile phone for the U.S. (Manhattan or Silicon Valley phone number); and

6. Blackberry for U.S.

Note: Device for emails must be “Blackberry” brand, and at least one of the mobile phones must be an iPhone (second one can be Nokia or Motorola). During meetings, social or otherwise, all devices must be placed conspicuously on table where everyone can see.

Perhaps I’m being overly harsh. Given the incredibly valuable contribution to U.S. economic growth over the past 15 years from the financial services industry, I’m sure the Chinese government wants to make them as welcome as possible over here. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 9:00 am and is filed under China Business & Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.