While resident and foreign business people in Hong Kong are apprehensive about new restrictions that will be imposed when China takes control of Hong Kong on July 1, they don’t believe the change in government will substantially affect the brisk business climate, according to two DePaul University professors who recently returned from teaching courses in DePaul’s new Hong Kong Masters of Business Administration (MBA) program.

"The business community is reasonably certain business will continue as it has," said Nicholas De Leonardis, an executive-in- residence at DePaul’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. De Leonardis returned in May from teaching a four-week course in money and financial institutions to International Bank of Asia (IBA) employees, part of a DePaul/IBA Hong Kong MBA program launched in March.

"I think of Singapore as a model for Hong Kong," said De Leonardis, a former senior vice president and treasurer for LaSalle National Bank who has been to Hong Kong four times. "Singapore essentially has a one party system, but if you play by the rules, business continues. People are making money and prospering."

De Leonardis said some Hong Kong business people are concerned that China may try to move this business center to Shanghai. "But this will take a long time since, in addition to having developed a fully-integrated financial structure, business in Hong Kong is done within contractual relationships enforceable by a court of law, which is not changing," he said.

De Leonardis said several other factors, including the ability to get money out of Hong Kong, the fact that the Hong Kong dollar will remain as currency in Hong Kong, and increases in construction, infrastructure improvements and property values in Hong Kong, indicate that it is unlikely China will want to alter the city’s status as a center of commerce.

Mainland Chinese who come to Hong Kong are likely to experience a culture clash because Hong Kong is more Western and liberal, and residents of the city have a higher standard of living, said Edwin Cohen, a DePaul University accountancy professor who taught financial accounting this spring at the IBA in Hong Kong.

"Even though the mainland is only an hour away, the residents of Hong Kong see Hong Kong as their country, not just a city," he said. "They are very proud to tell you they are third or fourth generation Hong Kong residents."

People from the Philippines, who hold many of the hotel housekeeping and personal household jobs, and Indians, who work as guards and doormen in many Hong Kong hotels and businesses, are worried about their future status, he said. "They are afraid they will have to leave and that they’ll become people without countries.

"Of course, most of the British civil servants have already departed," Cohen added. "The Chinese residents of Hong Kong seem more comfortable with changes than their co-workers from the West and other Asian countries, who appear to more skeptical."

Cohen is available for interviews at DePaul, (312) 362-8775.

De Leonardis, who is available for interviews until June 26, can be reached at DePaul, (312) 362-8513.