Rotary International Convention
25 May 2002

If you have been following what is happening in the District or if you were at the last District Assembly, you would not have failed to notice that our District is preparing to bid for the Rotary International Convention to be held in Hong Kong in 2009.

Some have said that it is an ambitious project, while others have said that 2009 is too far ahead. Ambitious, no doubt it is, for Hong Kong has never been host to an RI Convention, but nothing easy is worth the efforts of business and professional people united in service and dedicated to peace. To those who say that 2009 is too far ahead, we would say that this is not, for both RI and the host cities require long lead time to ensure maximum success, and this is how has been planning international conventions to ensure that decisions are made at least five years ahead.

Looking round and about us, Seoul, Taipei and Singapore have all hosted RI Conventions in the recent past, in 1989, 1994 and 1999 respectively. Tokyo did it in 1978 and will do it again in 2004. All these economies have held Hong Kong in high esteem and as the bastion for free economy. All these economies are competeing with Hong Kong for foreign direct investment (FDI) into the region to stimulate and sustain economic growth, but Hong Kong has stood out head and shoulder above them all. International Monetary Fund approved statistics have shown that Hong Kong's inward FDI is the combined total of Japan and Korea and three times that of Singapore, with Taiwan trailing at a far distance. While the governments in the respective economies could claim some responsibilities for the success or the lack of it, in the case of Hong Kong, which prides itself in small government and least government intervention, few would dispute that the business and professional people have made that happen, and quite rightly so. Now, who are these people? Are we not talking about the likes of ourselves, Rotarians? If we or our likes have contributed to such phenomenal success, why have we not been able to bring an RI Convention to Hong Kong so far.

The reasons cannot be our membership numbers or lack of government support. Singapore has about one-third strong our number of clubs and the Government of the HKSAR has been supportive. Indeed we learnt that the Chief Executive is keen to have an RI COnvention held in Hong Kong and had personally put such questions to a visiting RI President in office. More relevantly, Lions Clubs International (LCI) held its International Convention in Hong Kong in 1992, attracting 25,000 participants and spendings of $500 million. LCI has decided to hold its convention in Hong Kong again in 2005, and has estimated that 30,000 members would come to spending over $1 billion. The LCI District 303 has fewer members than us.

It is therefore gratifying to note that the District is putting a bid for the 2009 RI Convention to be held in Hong Kong. There is a lot of work to be done. As a start, we should put our act together and think District, think international and think global. There is no room for personal differences or personal achievement. Any achievement will be an achievement of all.