汇丰控股有限公司集团主席   范智廉

一、 引言

近年来，北京成功实现了从重工业城市（以首都钢铁公司为例）到服务业占主导城市的转变。截止到2011年底，北京的服务业为地区GDP增长贡献了1.2万亿元，占地区GDP总量的75.5% 。

北京的服务业的成功对中国来说至关重要。随着中国制造业出口不断增加，占世界贸易的比重越来越大，越来越需要其它产业的发展以注入新的动力。目前，服务贸易是全球贸易中增长最为迅速的组成部分。信息技术的进步扩大了包括医疗与教育在内的跨境服务业贸易范围 。然而，虽然与制造业主导的经济体相比，服务产业主导的经济体在应对全球危机冲击的时候表现出更强的免疫力，但其高速经济增长率通常不被人们所熟知。北京市2011年GDP增长率达到了8.1% ，随之而来的是如下两大挑战：一是如何最好地保持如此高水平经济增长的势头；二是如何最好地实现服务主导型区域经济的潜力。
汇丰认为通过以下两种方法可以实现以上两个目标：

1、利用北京作为中国政府与监管中心的地位，继续吸引大型国内及跨国服务型企业入驻北京；
2、通过支持中小企业的进一步发展为北京市的服务产业创造需求。

在本文中，汇丰将从一个金融服务提供商的角度来分析这些挑战，但我们提供的建议并非局限于金融服务行业。这主要有以下两点原因：首先，金融服务业不能孤立发展。每一个金融服务业中心的发展总是要同时依赖服务业和非服务业的发展。其次，任何金融服务产业集群的发展方向都取决于其所服务的当地区域特性。北京在这方面也不例外。通过集中发展自身优势才能最佳地实现北京服务业的潜力。而实现这一雄伟目标的关键在于金融行业与政府、技术与创意产业之间建立的共生关系，后三者在推动北京市经济发展与创新方面做出了很大的贡献。

二、建设有竞争力的北京

一个城市在推动服务业发展方面能做的唯一最重要的就是要创造良好的商业环境。经济危机后竞争不断加剧，许多服务业中心被迫重新评估自身的地位以及相对优势与劣势。在英国（很可能是世界第一大全球服务业中心），英国政府和伦敦市政府委托撰写了一系列调查报告 ，确认维持英国服务业主导地位蓝图中应包含的组成部分。综合来看，这一系列报告指出了影响服务业竞争力的四大主题，如下：

1、精心设计的、有支撑力的税务和监管体制；
2、城市对领先企业的吸引力；
3、拥有技能娴熟的劳动力；
4、宽广的国际视野。

以上所有因素在很大程度上是可复制的。的确，北京在复制以上一些条件方面已经取得了实际的进步。

精心设计的、稳健的、有支撑力的税务和监管体制

税收与监管是决定企业营运环境的主要因素。这两者构成了企业的主要固定成本，也是任何企业评估某一城市作为潜在投资地吸引力强弱的重要考虑因素。较低的税收基础和灵活的监管机制将一直是城市持续稳定发展的保证。然而也需要兼顾平衡以确保有足够的税收收入支撑基础设施的发展，使得一个城市得以良好运行并具有竞争力。与兼顾平衡同样重要的还有可预测性。增量税收收入的用途以及税收政策改革流程方面的透明度也很重要。事实上，提供一个稳定而可预见的商业体制在很多方面都比采取大量短期的“赠送”措施更为可取。财政、监管政策的不断调整给企业带来极大的合规成本，导致公司缺乏对营运条件有足够的预见，进而限制了公司的规划能力。

在英国，大型企业顾问集团与英国财政部及税收海关总署共同建立了一个具有竞争力的财政框架（该框架性文件请参见附件）。伦敦应对环境变化的能力确保了其全球金融中心的地位。这部分原因在于伦敦有一个灵活的监管体系，使其能自由进行调整以适应环境。然而，其它金融中心，尤其是纽约，在伦敦发展的薄弱时期未能抓住机遇而取代其成为世界的国际金融之都。实际上，其它金融中心的失败非但没有削弱、反而增强了伦敦全球金融中心的地位。

1945年后英国发展的薄弱本应给纽约提供加强自身货币、资本市场结构并取代伦敦金融中心地位的机会。然而，由于美国政府监管干预，纽约未能抓住这一有利机遇。美国政府的监管干预最初主要是为了管理全球金融和货币体系以避免两次世界大战之间危机的重现，随后在 20世纪60年代国际收支赤字攀升的大背景下演变成了保护美元国际币值之举，有效地消除了当时在纽约本可能因为美国经济和美元的重要性而进一步加剧恶化的金融活动。

同样，20世纪60年代美国政府强行实施的货币管制和利率上限阻碍了纽约的银行持有美元。由于英镑的不稳定性以及出于汇率风险考虑，银行并不希望将美元兑换成英镑。伦敦利用这一机遇提供美国以外地区持有的、以美元计价的存款或欧洲债券。因此，当时本可能极大削弱伦敦地位的经济环境最后反而巩固了其作为世界领先货币贸易中心的地位。

北京对领先企业的吸引力

一座城市对大型国际企业是否具有吸引力取决于其是否能提供便利性及补充性服务。比如，伦敦作为企业聚集地的吸引力来自于其所拥有的全球客户基础、全球金融研究中心地位、因早期建立的储蓄库及养老金所促成的由史至今大型基金管理中心地位、以及近欧元区的地理优势和与美国的密切联系 。芝加哥的重商主义体系、商品交易所以及专长于信息技术、生命科学、电信和软件的企业培育了拥有娴熟技能的工人，催化了大量本地大学学术成果并提供许多可及的资金池 。虽然金融业既非东京的主要产业，也非其公共收入的最大来源，东京却拥有世界上第二大证券交易所。东京的吸引力绝大部分在于一些领先的日本制造商为维持其大量研发运营提供支持 。

北京拥有以下两点自身优势：

1、作为全国首都，北京是政府及监管机构总部所在地；
2、拥有其它城市无法比拟的研发能力，能助推北京蓬勃发展的技术和创意产业。

首先，和华盛顿特区一样，北京是全国政府和监管机构的总部所在地。华盛顿特区因其联邦政府对所有服务类型的稳定需求，在经济危机中表现出了极大的韧性。北京也享有类似的优势。事实上，由于监管机构和被监管机构及企业所需的必要技能，围绕监管中心建立服务业集群是非常自然的现象。鉴于这些技能在公共和私营部门之间可以相互转移，北京将一直是吸引国际和本土金融机构的中心城市。这也是为什么北京能与纽约、法兰克福、新加坡和香港这些业已发展起来的中心一道被全球金融中心指数（GFCI）列为全球六大最稳定的金融中心的原因之一 。北京同时也是中国最大型国有企业的总部所在地，而这些大型国有企业本身就是大规模业务的来源。

其次，创新和研发的专项资金投入也极大推动着北京将其建设中国独一无二、充满活力的研究中心。从这一点看，相较于纽约和伦敦，北京作为一个城市与波斯顿或旧金山更为类似，能为更广泛的服务部门提供独立全套的潜在优势和机遇。

上海可能希望在金融服务领域效仿伦敦或纽约，而北京并非如此，北京的各个部门整合起来就意味着北京有潜力将美国波士顿或旧金山以及英国牛津或剑桥的人才、研发、创新和科技专业知识与华盛顿和东京的监管与服务实力结合起来。正是这一有力的结合使得北京不同于其它服务业中心。

技能娴熟的劳动力

全球服务业市场竞争越来越激烈。世界的大型企业竭尽全力寻找最佳人才以增加最大竞争优势。如果一座城市能够培养并留住拥有恰当娴熟技能的劳动力，那么它将会比其它服务业中心更具优势。伦敦和纽约均以其所雇佣的本地人才而引以为豪。在纽约，仅金融行业从业者占其全部劳动力的15% 。英国和美国的大学体系一直以来就与其各自的主要企业保持着密切的联系，不断地给学生注入创新和进取创业的思想。这种企业与大学之间的密切协作至今仍通过与领先的美英商学院以及传统大学的正式联系得以继续。

教育仍是所有快速发展经济体面临的一个重要问题。缺乏教育基础设施对经济发展的影响有如缺乏交通或能源基础设施。帮助学术机构培养合适的人才将缓解外资快速增加导致人才库资源紧张而加剧的压力。如果不能扩大人才库，则可能带来供给的不平衡，导致薪资急剧上涨，最后会形成一个恶性循环：有才华的高管频繁更换工作，而企业雇主反过来则不愿意为高管的发展进行投资。

当前，北京市服务业对GDP贡献比率与该重点行业的雇佣人数不相匹配。北京的劳动力中仅有17％就职于高科技、金融、文化和创意公司，这与纽约、伦敦和东京同行业超过50％的劳动力雇佣比例形成了鲜明的对比 。这表明北京可能缺乏足够合格的人才进入到这些行业。北京的研究界与企业界之间已经存在广泛的合作。北京市政府也可尝试确保北京的学生具备广泛的技能作为他们核心课程高学分的补充：正是思想的广度和不同学科融汇贯通的能力能够推动创新。

如果说培养人才是一回事，那么留住人才则是另外一回事。拥有北京大学和清华大学计算机科学学历的学生中，有30％离开了中国去国外发展，其中去美国的人中，仅约14％已经回国，这说明北京面临极大的人才流失。为在北京创业的归国华人提供资金支持是一个非常有远见的举措，尽管此举的最终目标应是留住更多人才，并利用他们的海外经验作为回京后进一步发展的基石。

在这方面，一个具有吸引力的投资环境很重要，同样，在研究机构以外领域培养创新的文化氛围也很重要。一些评论人士认为，剧院、画廊、博物馆、酒吧及餐馆等文化空间和设施也至关重要。这个理论凑效的前提原理在于，凸现与文化多样性及美学相结合的有利的社会文化环境，对那些才华横溢并极具洞察力的人才而言充满吸引力 。作为转型中的城市，北京有机会将这些美德结合起来。北京市政府当局对北京市文化环境建设的大力投资表明北京已经抓住这个机遇，这也是北京为其生活环境注入创新文化与活力的一个不大却重要的途径。

保持强大的国际视野

世界上最成功的服务业中心往往是通过保持连贯一致的国际视野而捕捉到国际贸易机遇。这就意味着不仅要对海外机遇非常敏感，同时也要对海外的机构和员工持开放态度。世界的服务业中心，以伦敦、纽约和香港为例，都是高度国际化的大都市。尤其是伦敦，一直以来都对外资竞争和海外企业伦敦分支机构的设立持开放态度，并吸引海外人才以加强其竞争优势。过去，这种做法主要是通过把有利于外籍员工的财政措施嵌入到税收体系来实现的。过去十年，伦敦金融城10％到15％的注册劳动力为非常住居民 。

北京显然已经在吸引海外机构入驻北京方面取得了极大的成功。然而，虽然许多公司出于接近政府和监管当局的考虑可能在北京设立机构，但如果没有新的增长机遇其业务运营也不可能扩大。这对金融服务业来说尤为如此。就需要放松对外资银行的限制，以便它们抓住国内商机发挥更大的作用。

三、发挥北京的优势

汇丰认为北京可以通过以下两个领域发挥其优势，造福北京的服务业发展。在本报告的开始，我们就指出了以下优势：

1、作为全国首都，北京是政府及监管机构的总部所在地；
2、拥有其它城市无法比拟的研发能力，能助推北京蓬勃发展的技术和创意产业。

具体来讲，汇丰建议北京可以：

1、基于北京接近政府和监管机构的优势，宣传北京作为投资之都的地位；
2、利用北京的研发能力，通过支持中小企业在京重点行业的进一步发展，为北京的服务业创造地方需求。

通过发挥以上两大优势，北京能最大效果地利用当前优势，并为未来的经济发展提供动力。

北京作为投资之都

鉴于北京作为政府和监管机构中心以及中国国有企业总部聚集地的地位，北京将一直是对商业服务业具有吸引力的地方。北京不仅接近中国主要决策机构，同时也接近中国主要的服务采购机构。

北京也是中国最大银行、主权财富基金和大量的本地及跨国保险公司的总部所在地。北京市政府的战略重点与国家投资战略的紧密关联能使北京更好地利用其地位吸引有资金的企业和基金公司来投资。

在接下来的几年里，基础设施融资将继续作为中国政府国家政策的一大重点。随着对经济增长的信心取代对通胀的担忧，政府将会把重点放在创造国内需求上，以抵消发达经济体经济增长低迷或停滞带来的外需减少 。投资将在刺激内需方面发挥重要作用。北京完全能发挥这一优势，利用其影响力为那些已经入驻北京的投资机构提供发展机遇，并鼓励其它机构入驻北京以充分利用北京出现的新机遇。

随着投资监管的放松，私营企业可以参与到更广泛的行业当中，北京也将从中受益。国务院2010年5月发布的条例首次强调鼓励和引导私有投资的重要性。北京因风投和私募的发展而著称，只要监管限制进一步放松，北京就拥有进一步发展的基础。

温总理2012年4月就中国大型银行的可能性分拆所做的评论在这方面显得尤为重要 。这种分拆可能带来银行与投资的商业化，能在传统银行融资领域外开创基础设施投资新领域。私有养老金行业不断发展并灵活投资于能带来强大而稳定回报的行业项目，如电力或交通，将有助于这一进程的发展。

欧洲的基础设施项目一直以来因为低风险和融资期限较长的特点成为养老金和投资基金的主要投资工具。清洁技术基础设施，如海上风电厂，一直以来是丹麦、且越来越成为英国养老金投资的一大领域 。由于欧洲缺乏可用的银行融资，因而产生了对基础设施融资新模式的需求。为此，汇丰当前正在探索融资新模式，如：1、银行或债券混合产品；2、银行债务作为债券再融资工具；3、不影响私有部门融资的部分政府或类政府担保或支持结构（如欧洲投资银行）。北京市政府可以作为中央政府与北京金融业的桥梁，帮助中央政府和北京金融业以同样的方式实现各自的战略目标。

考虑到中国经济的发展规模越来越大、不断融入全球经济，抢占先机利用其对投资的偏好能推动北京建设全球投资中心的部署。此前就有先例：19世纪为支持伦敦铁路建设而出现的新融资工具就是伦敦作为投资中心发展起来的重要因素。英国投资者对这种资产类型非常熟悉，以至于他们将自己的专业知识推广到世界各地的铁路融资。其它行业的同时发展对伦敦投资银行业务的发展也发挥了基础性作用 。随着监管放松循序渐进、按部就班的进行，北京作为投资之都的地位也可能为金融家创造类似的机会。

培养中小企业和小微企业

如果政府和监管机构的出现在吸引国际服务提供商方面能够发挥主要作用，那么北京的中小企业则能为服务业创造地方需求。

汇丰自身的经验表明了企业增长如何推动服务业发展。中小企业需要最初的启动资金以确保企业成长。随着发展越来越成功，开始使用更为复杂的产品并需要贸易融资以扩展业务。在贸易过程中，他们会获得外汇风险披露，发行高收益债券以进一步筹资。如果发展规模够大，他们可以寻求在交易所上市，从而创造财富并推动私人银行业务机遇。他们雇佣的人数越多，创造的零售银行业务机遇就越大。员工财富的积累创造了财富管理、资产管理和保险机遇。虽然这个例子主要是针对金融服务行业的，它同时也同样适应于法律服务产业或者会计行业。因为随着企业规模越来越大，发展越来越成熟，他们需要服务行业提供更多的支持和建议。

成功的新创企业通常会培育额外的新创企业，这样一来提供给地方服务业的潜在效益得以复制。正如Shahid Yusef 和 Kaoru Nabeshima所说：“世界上持久的创新热点——那些能带来强大企业集群的地方——拥有一个共同特性：少数企业早期在此扎根发展并存活下来，通过不断创新提高了自身能力并扩大规模。这些企业发挥着关键的孵化和培养作用，（最为重要的是）担负起创建无数子公司和吸引诸多新创企业的责任。”

北京的研究密集型产业也是其主要优势之一。中国1867个高等教育机构中，有80家位于北京 。北京高等教育领域的研发机构数量比中国其它任何城市都要多，且其研发投资力度和大学及研究机构研发成果数量也位居全国第一。北京的科技园，尤其是中关村科技园区，就是大量知识资本的来源。相较于中国其它城市，北京提交的成功专利申请数量更多，这充分体现了其知识资本的潜力。

任何这种知识资本和创新的聚集都将不可避免地推动旨在推广研究成果的新创企业的建立。北京以其进取精神而著称，中关村就是一个新创企业尤为偏好的地方。然而，获得资金仍是许多中小企业面临的一大挑战。许多企业仍然依赖盈利性为基础的融资或者其它实体和非银机构的替代融资，如信托公司和微型信贷公司，导致其融资成本比可能获得的银行贷款成本更高。

中国银监会在放松银行业管制、允许银行投资处于早期发展阶段的新兴创新型高风险企业方面的尝试取得了一定成功，这将对推动北京新兴企业的发展发挥关键作用。如果这些企业仍然不能获得足够的融资，北京市政府可能希望自己来填补融资空缺，或帮助中小企业找寻额外的融资来源。北京市政府为新创企业提供种子基金的承诺不仅能加强其吸引风投的能力，在某种程度上对北京服务业的未来发展也至关重要。

四、经济发展的途径

考虑到北京当前的地位及所面临的机遇，汇丰建议北京市政府考虑以下八条发展策略：

1、围绕北京作为中国投资之都的主题制定宣传推广策略；
2、制定金融服务业发展策略，集中关注保险业和养老金的发展前景；
3、鼓励放松投资监管规则，允许私有部门和外资企业参与到更为广泛的领域；
4、发挥中央政府和潜在投资伙伴的桥梁作用，朝着有利于北京发展的方向实现中央政府和潜在投资伙伴各自的目标；
5、探索新的方法，扩大政府推动的中小企业，尤其是北京重点战略行业内的中小企业的种子基金；
6、鼓励银行的商业化，为中小企业提供新的融资方案并鼓励银行贷款更多地向小型企业倾斜；
7、积极向全球风投和私募企业宣传北京的创新和研发实力；
8、增强北京投资环境的吸引力，确保中国最优秀的毕业生能在京实现他们的远大抱负。

Promoting the Growth of Beijing's Trade in Services and Increasing the Competitiveness and Influence of Beijing's Service Economy——
Douglas J Flint，Group Chairman，HSBC Holdings plc

1. Introduction

In recent years, Beijing has been transformed from a city of heavy industries, such as the Capital Iron and Steel Works, to a city dominated by the services sector.  By 2011, Beijing’s service sector contributed RMB 1.2 trillion to Beijing’s GDP, 75.5 per cent of the total.  

Beijing’s service success is vital for China.  As Chinese manufacturing exports grow as a larger proportion of world trade, there is an added impetus to generate new growth from other sectors.  The trade in services is currently the fastest growing component of global trade.  Advances in information technology have expanded the range of services now tradable across national borders, including health and education.   However, whilst economies which are dominated by service industries tend to possess greater immunity to global shocks than those founded on manufacturing, they are not generally known for their high rates of economic growth.  Yet Beijing’s GDP grew by 8.1 per cent in 2011.   This creates two challenges: how best to maintain the momentum that has generated such a high level of growth; and how best to fulfil the potential of a regional economy which is overwhelmingly service-orientated. 

HSBC believes that there are two ways to achieve this:

1. Capitalise on Beijing’s status as China’s governmental and regulatory centre to continue to attract large domestic and multinational services businesses to the city; and
2. Create the local demand for Beijing’s services sector by supporting greater SME growth.

In this paper, HSBC approaches these challenges from the perspective of a financial services provider, but without limiting its advice to financial services.  This is for two reasons.  Firstly, the financial services sector does not survive in isolation.  Every financial services centre has always relied on both services and non-services for growth.  Secondly, the direction of the development of any financial services cluster depends on the nature of the local constituency that it serves.  Beijing is no different in that regard.  It can best fulfil its services potential by concentrating on those areas in which it is already strong.  At the core of this ambition is the symbiotic relationship between the financial sector and the governmental, technological and creative industries which do so much to drive economic development and innovation in Beijing.  

2. A competitive Beijing

The single most important thing that a city can do to foster service sector growth is to create the right business environment.  In the heightened competitive environment in the wake of the economic crisis, many services centres have been forced to take stock of their position and assess their relative strengths and weaknesses.  In the UK (probably the world’s foremost global services centre), the UK Government and the London municipal government commissioned a series of investigatory reports to identify the component parts of a blueprint for the continuing pre-eminence of the nation’s service industry.   Taken as a whole, those reports identified four primary themes which impact the competitiveness of a services sector:

1. A well-designed and supportive tax and regulatory regime;
2. A city’s attractiveness as a location for leading corporations;
3. Availability of a highly-skilled workforce; and
4. Maintenance of a strong international outlook.

All of these factors are, to a great degree, replicable.  Indeed, Beijing has already made real progress in reproducing some of these conditions. 

A well-designed, stable and supportive tax and regulatory regime

Tax and regulation are the principal factors which dictate a firm’s operating environment.  They constitute the main fixed costs that a business faces and feature highly in any company’s assessment of the attractiveness of a potential base.  A low tax base and regulatory flexibility will always stand a city in good stead, although there is also a balance to strike in order also to tax sufficiently to fund the infrastructure that keeps a city functioning and competitive.  Predictability is just as important as proportionality.  Transparency is also important as to where incremental tax revenues will be directed and as to the process through which tax policy changes will be made.  Indeed, the provision of a stable and predictable business regime is in many ways preferable to a profusion of short-term “giveaway” measures.   Constant fiscal and regulatory readjustment imposes considerable compliance costs on a business and restricts a company’s ability to plan with sufficient foresight of operating conditions. 

In the UK the Large Business Advisory Group worked with HM Treasury and HM Revenue and Customs to create a framework for a competitive fiscal framework; this is attached as Appendix I.  London’s ability to react to changing circumstances has ensured its survival as a global financial centre.  In part, this has been due to a flexible regulatory system which provided the freedom to adapt to circumstance.  However, other financial centres, particularly New York, have failed to capitalise on London’s periods of weakness and to displace it as the world international finance capital.  In fact, if anything, instead of eroding it, their failure had the effect of bolstering London’s status.

The UK’s weakness after 1945 should have provided New York with an opportunity to build up its own money and capital market structures and to steal London’s mantle.  However, it was prevented from so doing as a consequence of regulatory intervention by the US Government.  This began as efforts to manage the global financial and monetary systems so as to avoid repeating the crises of the inter-war years. Interventions then became attempts to protect the international value of the US Dollar in the 1960s, as balance of payments deficits mounted. The effect was to drive away from New York the financial activities that would naturally have gravitated there because of the importance of the US economy and the US Dollar.

Similarly, the imposition of currency controls and interest rate caps by the US Government deterred banks from holding currency in New York in the 1960s.  Given the instability of the Pound Sterling, banks did not want to convert dollars into that currency because of the exchange risks.  London exploited this opportunity by providing dollar denominated deposits held outside the USA, or Eurobonds.  An economic circumstance that should have badly weakened London’s status therefore ultimately cemented its position as the world’s leading currency trading venue.  

Beijing’s attractiveness as a location for leading corporations

A city’s attractiveness as a location for large international businesses is based on the convenience that it offers and the availability of complementary services.  For example, London’s attractiveness as a place to do business stems from its global client base, its status as a global centre for financial research, its historic and current position as a major centre for funds management driven by its early creation of pooled savings and pension funds, and its proximity to the Eurozone and strong links with the United States.   Chicago’s system of mercantile and commodity exchanges and firms specialising in IT, life sciences, telecommunications and software all feed off the skilled workers and research findings generated by the city’s universities and large access to pools of capital.  Tokyo is home to the world’s second largest equities exchange, although finance is neither the leading sector nor the largest source of public revenues.  A large portion of Tokyo’s appeal is maintenance of substantial R&D operations by leading Japanese manufacturers.

Beijing possesses two significant strengths of its own:

1. Its status as the national capital, housing the machinery of government and regulation; and
2. Its unparalleled research capability, which has helped to spawn the city’s burgeoning technological and creative industries.

In the first instance, like Washington DC, Beijing houses the machinery of government and regulation.  The economy of the Washington DC region has demonstrated resilience in the face of shocks because of steady demand for all types of services from and in connection with the federal government. Beijing enjoys similar benefits.  Indeed, the establishment of service clusters around centres of regulation occurs naturally because of the skills required by both regulators and regulated institutions and businesses.  Given the transferability of these skills between the public and private sectors, Beijing will always be an attractive base for both multinational and home-grown financial institutions.  It is also one of the reasons for Beijing’s classification as one of the six most stable financial centres in the world in the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI) 2011, alongside established centres such as New York, Frankfurt, Singapore and Hong Kong.   Beijing is also the headquarter of the largest Chinese state-owned enterprises, which are a source of considerable business themselves. 

Secondly, the investment of exceptional sums into innovation and research and development has contributed to the creation of a dynamic research base otherwise unrivalled in China.  As a city, this makes Beijing more akin to Boston or San Francisco than New York or London – with a whole separate set of potential advantages and opportunities available to the broader services sector.  

Rather than growing to emulate London or New York in the way that Shanghai might aspire to do in relation to financial services, the sum of Beijing’s parts means that it has the potential to combine the intellectual, research, innovation and technology expertise of Greater Boston or San Francisco in the US, or Oxford and Cambridge in the UK, together with the regulatory power and the services prowess of Washington DC and Tokyo.   This is a potent combination which sets Beijing apart from other service centres.

A highly skilled workforce

The global services market is increasingly competitive.  The world’s largest firms go to great lengths to secure the best talent to provide them with the greatest competitive advantage.  A city producing and retaining a highly and appropriately skilled workforce will always have a significant advantage over other service centres.  Both London and New York take great pride in their employment of locally produced talent.  15 per cent of New York’s workforce is employed in the financial sector alone.   The UK and the US university systems have traditionally shared close ties with each country’s major businesses and have been relied upon to instil a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in their students. That close collaboration continues today through formal connections with leading British and American business schools as well as the leading group of traditional universities. 

Education remains a very important issue in all fast growing economies. A lack of educational infrastructure has the same effect on growth as a lack of transport or energy infrastructure.  Assisting the city’s scholarly institutions to produce the right kind of talent will mitigate the impact of mounting pressure on an already limited talent pool as a consequence of rapidly increasing foreign investment.  The risk of failure to expand this pool is an imbalance between demand and supply which leads to sharply increased wages.  Ultimately, this creates a vicious circle in which talented executives change jobs frequently and employers are in turn less inclined to invest in their development.

In Beijing, there is currently some disconnection between the contribution of Beijing’s services sector to its GDP and the number of people that work in its priority industries.  Just 17 per cent of people in Beijing work in high-tech, financial, cultural and creative companies.  This is in stark contrast to New York, London and Tokyo, where the figure is over 50 per cent.   This suggests a possible lack of appropriately qualified people available to enter these sectors. There already exists extensive collaboration between the Beijing research community and the corporate community.  The municipal government might also seek to ensure that Beijing’s students are imbued with a broad range of skills to supplement high academic achievement in their core subject: it is mental breadth and the ability to connect different disciplines which help to drive innovation.

If producing talent is one thing, retaining it is another.  Of students who have received degrees in computer science from Peking University and Tsinghua University, 30 per cent have left to go abroad, and of those who went to the United States, just an estimated 14 per cent have returned.  This represents a large loss of brain power.  The offer of grants for returnees to establish businesses in Beijing is a far-sighted move, although the ultimate aim must be both to retain more talent and to make overseas experience a stepping stone to advancement on returning to Beijing. 

An attractive investment environment plays a part in this, but so does the development of a culture of innovation outside of the city’s research institutions.  Some commentators have suggested that that cultural spaces and amenities, such as theatres, galleries, museums, bars and restaurants, are vital in this regard.  This theory works on the principle that the augmentation of a strong socio-cultural environment combined with cultural diversity and aesthetics acts as a magnet to people who are “talented and discriminating”.   As a city in transition, Beijing has the chance to embed these virtues.  The considerable investment by the city authorities into Beijing’s cultural environment suggests it is already taking that opportunity.  This is a small but important route to instilling a culture of innovation and a dynamic living environment. 

Maintaining a strong international outlook

The world’s most successful services centres have captured international trade by maintaining a consistent and concerted international outlook.  This means not only being alive to opportunities overseas, but also being receptive to overseas institutions and employees.  The world’s service capitals – London, New York and Hong Kong, to name just three – are all highly cosmopolitan cities. London in particular has always been receptive to foreign competition and to the establishment of London branches by overseas firms, and it has drawn on talent from overseas to increase its competitive advantage.  In the past, this has been embedded in the tax system through favourable fiscal measures for foreign nationals.  In the last decade, between 10 and 15 per cent of the City of London’s workforce was registered as non-domiciled.  

Beijing has clearly already experienced considerable success in attracting overseas institutions to the city.  However, whilst many companies might establish a base in Beijing because of its proximity to the governmental and regulatory authorities, they will be unlikely to expand their operations without new growth opportunities.  For financial services in particular, this will require a loosening of restrictions around the activities of banks based outside China in order to allow a broader role in domestic business opportunities. 

3. Exploiting Beijing’s strengths

HSBC believes that there are two areas in particular through which Beijing can capitalise on its strengths to the benefit of the city’s service sector.  Earlier in this paper, we identified these strengths as:

1. Beijing’s status as the national capital, housing the machinery of government and regulation; and
2. Its unparalleled research capability, which has helped to spawn the City’s burgeoning technological and creative industries.

In particular, HSBC recommends that Beijing might:

1. Market Beijing as an investment capital on the back of the city’s proximity to the machinery of government and regulation; and
2. Harness the city’s R&D capabilities to create the local demand for Beijing’s services sector by supporting greater SME growth in the city’s priority industries.

Both of these areas make best effect of Beijing’s existing strengths and provide fuel for future growth.

Beijing as an investment capital

Beijing will always be an attractive venue for the business services sector due to its position as a centre of governmental and regulatory machinery and the main headquarters of China’s state-owned enterprises.  It offers not only proximity to the country’s main decision-making bodies, but also to the state’s principal service procuring institutions.   

It is home to the country’s largest banks, its sovereign wealth funds and a great many national and multinational insurance companies.  The close association between the municipal government’s strategic priorities and the national investment strategy enables Beijing to exploit its position to attract firms and funds with finance to invest.

Infrastructure funding will continue to be a major national policy priority for the Chinese Government in the coming years.  With confidence about growth replacing concern about inflation, the emphasis will be on creating domestic demand to counteract the reduction in external demand as growth remains slow or stalled in developed nations.   Investment will play a major role in generating this demand.  Beijing is well placed to capitalise on this, using its influence to bolster opportunity for those investors already based in the city, and encouraging others to locate there to take advantage of new opportunities that arise.

Beijing stands to benefit as deregulation of investment allows private participation in a wider range of industries. The State Council’s circular of May 2010 emphasised for the first time the importance of encouraging and directing private investment, and with Beijing already well known as a hub for venture capital and private equity, it has the foundation on which to build as soon as restrictions are loosened further.

Premier Wen’s comments of April 2012 on the possible break-up of China’s big banks are especially significant in this regard.   The commercialisation of banking and investment which would result from such a break-up could open up new avenues of infrastructure investment outside the boundaries of traditional banking finance.  The development of a private pension industry with greater flexibility to invest in projects in sectors which deliver strong and stable returns, such as power or transport, will aid this process. 

In Europe, infrastructure projects have been prime investment vehicles for pension and insurance funds due to the low risk, long duration nature of infrastructure finance.  Clean-tech infrastructure, such as offshore wind farms, has been a target for pension fund investment in Denmark and, increasingly, the UK.   The lack of availability of bank finance in Europe has created demand for new models of infrastructure finance.  To this end, HSBC is currently exploring new models such as: a) bank/bond hybrids; b) bank debt as a bridge to bond refinancing; and c) partial government and quasi governmental guarantee/support structures (e.g. the European Investment Bank) that do not undermine benefits of private sector finance.  The Beijing government might act as a bridge between central government and the Beijing financial community to help both achieve their strategic objectives in a similar way.

Given the scale of the Chinese economy and its increasing integration into the global economy, early movement to capitalise on the appetite for investment could help position Beijing as a global centre of investment.   There are precedents for this: the growth of new instruments to finance the building of London’s railways in the 19th Century was an important factor in the City’s development as an investment centre.  British investors grew so familiar with this type of asset that they broadened their expertise to finance railways around the world, and parallel developments in other sectors were instrumental in the growth of London’s large investment banking community.   With progressive but measured deregulation, Beijing’s status as an investment capital might open similar opportunities for its financiers.

Nurturing SMEs and MMEs

If the presence of government and regulatory institutions will play a major role in attracting
international service providers, Beijing’s SMEs will create the local demand for services. 

HSBC’s own experience demonstrates the way in which business growth spawns service expansion.  SMEs require initial start-up funding to grow.  As they become successful, they begin to use more sophisticated products and require trade finance to expand. As they trade, they gain foreign exchange exposure and issue high yield bonds to raise further finance. If they grow large enough they may list on a stock exchange, which in turn will create wealth and fuel private banking opportunities.  The more people they employ, the bigger the retail banking opportunity they create.  Accumulation of wealth by their staff then creates wealth management, asset management and insurance opportunities.  Whilst this example focuses on the financial services specifically, it could equally apply to the legal services industry or the accountancy sector.  As firms grow larger and more sophisticated, they develop a greater need for support and advice from the service sector.

Successful start-up firms often spawn additional start-ups, which duplicate the potential benefit to the local services sector.  As Shahid Yusef and Kaoru Nabeshima observe: “The durable innovation hotspots around the world—the ones that have given rise to resilient clusters of firms—share one common trait: the vital, procreative, and nurturing role of a few firms that struck root at an early stage, survived, innovated, built up competencies, grew in size, and (most important) were responsible for creating numerous spinoffs and for attracting many start-ups.” 

Beijing’s research intensive industries are one of its major strengths.  Of 1,867 higher education institutions in China, 80 are located in Beijing.   There are more R&D institutions in the higher education sector in Beijing than in any other Chinese city and it dominates its compatriot cities in R&D spending and the volume of research conducted at universities and research institutions.  Beijing’s science parks, in particular the Zhongguancun Science and Technology Zone, are a source of significant intellectual capital.  The potential of this capital has been manifested in the submission of greater numbers of successful patent applications than any other Chinese city. 

Any such concentration of intellectual capital and innovation will inevitably lead to the creation of start-up businesses designed to commercialise the fruits of this research.  Beijing has a formidable entrepreneurial reputation, with Zhongguancun a particularly favoured place to start a business.  However, securing finance can still be a challenge for many small and medium-sized enterprises.  Many still rely on profit-based funding or alternative funding from entities and non-bank institutions, such as trust companies and micro-credit companies.  This can lead to financing costs higher than if they have access to bank loans.  

The success of the CBRC’s attempts to free banks to invest in new, innovative and possibly riskier businesses at an early stage will play a vital role in advancing development of Beijing’s nascent businesses.  Should finance still not be made available in sufficient quantities, the Beijing municipal government may want to fill the gap itself or assist SMEs to find additional sources of funding.  The commitment of the municipal government to offer seed funding to start-ups would in some circumstances be critical to Beijing’s service future, as would its ability to attract venture capital investment to the city. 

4. Pathways to growth

Having considered the current position of Beijing and the opportunities that lay before it, HSBC recommends the consideration of the following eight “pathways to growth”:

1. Create a marketing strategy focussed on Beijing’s centre as the Chinese investment capital;
2. Develop a strategy for the development of the financial services industry, focussed on the prospects for growth of the insurance and pension sectors;
3. Encourage the deregulation of investment rules to allow participation in a wider range of industries by private investors and non-Chinese businesses;
4. Act as a bridge between the central Government and potential investment partners to help both achieve their objectives, to Beijing’s benefit;
5. Investigate ways to expand government driven seed-funding of SMEs, particularly for the city’s priority strategic industries;
6. Encourage the commercialisation of banking to open up new financing options for SMEs and to encourage banks to lend more to smaller companies;
7. Actively market Beijing’s innovation and research pedigree to global venture capital and private equity firms; and
8. Increase the potential of Beijing as an attractive environment in which China’s brightest graduates can achieve their ambitions.