Leadership change in Hong Kong

No, there was no surprise change of plan from Beijing to reappoint Donald Tsang as Chief Executive today, the 10th anniversary of China's resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong. The news relates to a changing of the guard at AsiaWorld-Expo, the 18 month old exhibition centre at the airport.

Nicolas Borit, the current CEO, will be stepping up to become Managing Director at one the venue's main private sector shareholders, Dragages Hong Kong Limited. His place will be taken by Allen Ha, a [youthful] veteran of the Hong Kong exhibitions indutry. Allen is one of the few people in Hong Kong tall enough to look his former boss and now competitor Cliff Wallace at the HKCEC in the eye. I'm sure the AW-E Board had other considerations in mind as they appointed him!

Thanks to Kenneth Chan over at AW-E for his sterling efforts to get this release to me despite my e-mail systems unexplained desire to eat and destroy several copies of it.