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A vision of space for West Kowloon 2.
Bank of China theft sets new standards in skulduggery
1. A vision of space for West Kowloon They
are young, gifted and right on track. For seven months, a group of high-flying
Hong Kong architects sacrificed their free time day and night to work on a state-of-the
art design for the West Kowloon project. When they were finished, only a design
by guru architect Norman Foster stopped them from snatching first prize. Foster,
one of the world's most famous architects, with immense resources at his disposal,
beat more than 160 contestants with his design for the HK$24 billion, 52-hectare
development. But the innovative Venetian-themed design by the runner-up team will
not gather dust as the developers are considering incorporating some of its ideas
in the project. Foster's winning entry, like that of the team of six, has an aquatic
theme and includes a lagoon. But its most striking feature is a sweeping 25-hectare
canopy. The six runners-up - four men and two women aged 30 to 37 - worked after
hours, using their spare time to complete their project. ``Our families hardly
saw us for seven months,'' 37-year-old team leader Philip Liao told the Hong Kong
iMail. Money was short, so they relied on the faith of friends who published details
of their scheme in an expensive brochure and others who made the scale model,
required for the contest, for no payment. ``They trusted in us. I was so thrilled
when we won the HK$1.5 million for second prize as we were able to repay them,''
said Liao, a junior partner in Wong & Tung International. Liao, who studied
architecture in Italy, said the design concept was drawn mainly from Europe but
stressed that it had been a real team effort. Liao said he was fascinated by the
canals and grand buildings of Venice. `We treated the project more as a design
for a space, rather than a series of buildings,'' he said. ``The site is a most
commanding one, with a more striking view of the harbour than from Tsim Sha Tsui.
It enjoys some of the best views of the harbour and is the largest piece of waterfront
land still available. In other parts of Hong Kong the waterfront is cut off by
roads and highways. Here there is free access and I think this is very valuable.
``Venice is considered to be the most romantic city in the world. We tried to
recreate something similar in this space. We wanted the whole design to be entirely
water-related, with canals leading directly into the sea and with a central square
commanding this wonderful view of the harbour. ``We wanted to bring a lot of activity
into this area, with shops and al fresco cafes and entertainment areas, plus a
concert and opera venue.'' ``One of the problems in town planning, not just in
Hong Kong, but in the whole of Asia, is they build huge buildings, all trying
to be taller and more innovative than the others, but the spaces in between are
ignored. Our design puts the use of space first, with the buildings coming second.
In the most beautiful areas of Europe, the space is all-important, the buildings
merely forming a background. Urbanism should be all about spaces; this is where
most Asians go wrong.'' He criticised the development of Shanghai, especially
the new metropolitan area at Pudong, which, he said, was now full of high-rise
intelligent buildings with nothing in between for the public to enjoy. The team's
concept for the West Kowloon development was low rise, with green spaces, bridges,
canals and a concert centre with glass walls to give an uninterrupted view of
the harbour. ``We wanted to create the impression that those inside were floating
in a bubble of glass, which would glow like a gem at night. We created an icon
that would be beautiful from the inside and outside,'' Liao said. Provision was
made for a motor-boat shuttle service to carry visitors around the waterways and
to all the islands, most of which contained recreational or sitting-out areas.
The whole area was surrounded by shops. ``In effect we wanted to create the atmosphere
and amenities of Venice in Hong Kong,'' said Liao. When they were given the award,
Liao's team was told the final plans would adopt positive points from all winners.
There were two prize-winners and three honourable mentions. ``The official line
is that anything is still possible, they are still thinking about it,'' he said.
Liao is the son of architect Donald Liao, who has served as Secretary for Housing.
His mother, Christine, a famous ballerina, was the first woman from Hong Kong
to win a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dance in London. Born in Hong Kong,
Liao attended primary school here, then moved to England's elite Eton College.
He went on to study architecture at Cornell University in the US. After graduating,
he studied in Europe under various professors of architecture and worked as an
intern with architect firms in New York and London. He met his fashion designer
wife, Joanna, here and they have two sons. [Source:
Hong Kong iMail, 13 May 2002] 2.
Bank of China theft sets new standards in skulduggery
The tall buildings dominate the skyline of Kaiping, a city of 700,000 in the south
of Guangdong province, about 100km from Macau. One of these buildings is the city's
only five-star hotel, the other is a 22-storey office block. Everyone used to
call them the Bank of China hotel, because the bank has its main branch there,
until last October, when they discovered that the two buildings belong not to
the bank but to a subsidiary of the city's largest state company, the Kaiping
Polyester Fibre Group. It was on October 12 that bank auditors discovered that
three former managers of its Kaiping branch had stolen at least US$483 million
of the bank's money between 1993 and last year. Over the next several days, the
three escaped from China on false passports and remain on the run. Seven months
later, the impact of this theft, said to be the biggest banking scandal in China
since 1949, continues to shake the bank, far beyond what Xu Chaofan, the mastermind
who started the scam when he became manager of the Kaiping branch in 1993, aged
less than 30, could have imagined. Originally, the bank planned to raise up to
US$5 billion by listing its Hong Kong operations in New York and Hong Kong in
the first quarter of this year. Now it has scaled down the listing to US$2 billion
to US$3 billion in Hong Kong only, hopefully in the last quarter. Because Beijing
is insisting that Bank of China list ahead of four or five other major state firms,
the delay is holding up their efforts to raise badly needed capital in foreign
markets. The Kaiping scandal is one reason for the delay. Another is an 18-month
investigation by the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) that found
the bank guilty of misconduct at its New York branch, for which it was fined US$20
million in January. Cai Jing (Finance & Economy) magazine last week provided
Chinese readers with their most detailed account yet of what happened. On October
17, five days after the bank discovered the theft, the news leaked to people in
Kaiping, who formed long lines outside the bank's branches in the city. The Guangzhou
branch of the central bank ordered large amounts of cash to be brought, in convoys
under armed escort, from Guangzhou, Jiangmen, Taishan and other cities in Guangdong,
to pay out to anxious depositors. It put up stickers on buildings close to the
branches, saying that the credit of the bank was guaranteed. It was a repeat of
what happened in 1995 in the neighbouring city of Enping, where the manager of
the local branch of the Bank of Construction collected 3.5 billion yuan (about
HK$3.2 billion) from the bank over seven years by offering interest rates of more
than 30 per cent, leading to a run on the bank. The bank had to move more than
three billion yuan to Enping to pay the depositors, and the manager, Zheng Rongfang,
was given a suspended death sentence in October 1999. The scale of the Kaiping
theft is astonishing. The money stolen, US$483 million, is more than the income
of the city for the 10 years up to last year and the city has attracted just over
US$100 million in foreign investment. The bank's Kaiping branch had assets of
less than 10 billion yuan, and its manager could lend no more than US$1 million
in one transaction. But Xu and the two managers who succeeded him, Yu Zhendong
and Xu Guojun, were able to steal money from the bank for eight years. Not only
did the three work undetected but they were promoted, with Xu head of accounting
for the bank in Guangdong at the time of his escape. Investigators found that
he had earlier arranged for his family to emigrate. The principal channel for
the stolen money was the polyester fibre group, one of the mainland's biggest
500 companies in terms of assets and the only one in the city to own a listed
vehicle, Kaiping Chunhui, which trades on the Shenzhen stock market. As the biggest
state company in the city, it was the ideal cover to launder money. Xu and his
associates lent money to it, which they then channelled to Hong Kong and abroad
and to build the hotel and office building which belongs to one of its subsidiaries.
After the scandal broke last October, the hotel manager, who was also a former
deputy manager of the Bank of China branch, committed suicide by jumping off a
tall building. The bank cut off funds to the polyester fibre group, forcing it
to stop production, while its chairman, Liang Shuxiang, who is also the legal
representative of the listed company, was put under house arrest so that he could
be interrogated. But things seem to have returned to normal now. A spokeswoman
for the hotel said business was booming and it had occupancy rate of 80 per cent
to 100 per cent. "Mr Liang is still chairman of the group," she said.
"On other matters, I am afraid that I am not clear." [Source:
SCMP, 13 May 2002] |  |
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