OREANDA-NEWS. January 12, 2012. The Bank of East Asia (“BEA”) has held a business seminar entitled “Economic and Market Outlook 2012”. The event brought together experts from the academic, financial, investment, and banking fields to share their views with over 500 corporate and personal customers of the Bank on the outlook for 2012, reported the press-centre of Bank of East Asia.

In his opening address at the seminar, Mr. Adrian M.K. Li, Deputy Chief Executive of BEA, provided attendees with a summary of the current economic situation. “For the past year, the sovereign credit rating of most countries has been downgraded. The European debt crisis has affected the global economy, while the US economy continued to underperform.”

To shed light on the uncertainty ahead, four guest speakers were invited to share their knowledge and expertise. The speakers were:

Dr. Chan Yan-chong, Associate Professor, Department of Management Sciences, College of Business, City University of Hong Kong, who shared his views on the general economic outlook for Hong Kong and Mainland China in 2012;

Mr. Shih Wing-ching, Founder of Centaline Group, who shared his views on the general outlook for the property market in Hong Kong in 2012;

Mr. Francis Kwok, Marketing Director, Bright Smart Securities & Commodities Group Ltd., who gave a presentation on the equity market and investment opportunities in 2012; and

Ms. Kenix Lai, Senior Market Analyst, Currencies & Interest Rates Trading

Department of BEA, who spoke on foreign exchange trends in 2012 and the outlook for the US dollar.

Following their presentations, the speakers fielded questions from the seminar attendees in a question and answer session moderated by Mr. T.C. Chan, Senior Advisor to BEA, and Mr. Samson Li, BEA’s Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Investment Officer.

BEA holds events each year to keep corporate and personal customers abreast of the latest market developments. The “Economic and Market Outlook 2012” Seminar was designed to provide these customers with the market intelligence they require to refine their business and investment strategies for 2012.