Janet De Silva, insurance executive and Canadian Chamber of Commerce president, explains why Hong Kong is in the prime position to fuel business growth

When Janet De Silva was appointed chairman of Sun Life Financial (Hong Kong) in 2000, the well-respected Canadian insurance company had already been established in the SAR for 110 years.

Ms De Silva's challenge was to reinvigorate her company's activities in Hong Kong, where it had a staff of 80.

Two years later, staff totals 186, there are 350 agents tied exclusively to the company, and 80,000 customers as Sun Life recorded a more than 100 per cent increase in business.

Two years ago, Sun Life was in 22nd ranking in the Hong Kong insurance market. In 2002, it ranked seventh. This is due partly to fresh links it established with Hong Kong-based Citic KaWah Bank.

"We've invested in new systems, opened new lines of business and offered new products," she explained. "I like doing business in Hong Kong."

Ms De Silva said Sun Life is on a major growth initiative to expand its base in Hong Kong and to participate in more accelerated growth in the region.

"In Hong Kong we have a mature, transparent financial services environment. There is access to an attractive local market with high GDP and capital. There's access to skills and expertise to assist in the development of other parts of Asia, and close proximity to our other Asian operations."

Being in Hong Kong means the regional office can also provide specialised skills and resources to help in start-up operations in China.

Sun Life, Canada's largest insurance company, offers a broad range of products, including insurance policies tied to investment and savings programmes with specific aims. These can be targeted to pay for education, buy a property, guarantee a safe retirement plan, focus on wealth accumulation or any other fiscal ambition. All come with an insurance element.

"We offer financial planning tools," Ms De Silva explained. "We sit down with a  client, discuss their goals and work out the best manner in which they can achieve them. "

Booming Chamber of Commerce

Ms De Silva is also active in the community as president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. The organisation is booming as vigorously as the insurance company. Having grown at an annual 6 per cent since 1997, it is now the fourth largest foreign chamber in Hong Kong with 772 members.

Partly, this is because many Chinese have returned to Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta (PRD) with Canadian passports, seeking to establish new businesses in the industrial turbine of Guangdong. In turn, they encourage other Canadian businesses to set up shop in Hong Kong or just over the border.

"There's a huge Canadian business presence in the PRD," she said. "Company profiles are changing. It used to be that huge companies would venture into China. Now it's the small and medium-sized enterprises which are going there, and naturally the flow is through Hong Kong."

So large is the Canadian presence across the border that the Canada-China Business Council has set up an office in Shenzhen. 

Ms De Silva said the chamber aims are threefold: to raise the stature of the chamber itself, both in Hong Kong and Canada; to continue its key role in pushing for adoption of sustainable development policies; and to add value for her members so that the Canadian Chamber of Commerce is a useful adjunct to their business life.

When more than 200 top Canadian businessmen recently went to a symposium in Beijing, the go-getting Ms De Silva and the Hong Kong Canadian Chamber organised a luncheon for them where prominent SAR businesswomen and politician Christine Loh made a lively speech on "The Promise of the Pearl."It's her strong impression that the international business community in Hong Kong has much more faith in the city than many locals. "We're in the prime position in South China," she said.

Related links:
Sun Life www.sunlife.ca
Canadian Chamber of Commerce www.cancham.org