Was in Hong Kong for a few days this week to attend a conference.
The conference itself turned out to be just average. The annual meetings too. A bit disappointing as I would have thought that an Asia Pacific organization like that has the potential to propose changes in an impactful manner. Unfortunately, just as most things involving multi-country representations are, even if they come from the private sector, implementation ends up straying far from the ideals upon which the organization is built.

Now, it seems like the members use this as a mere networking session. That's a rather narrow and inward-looking notion. Because yes, while networking is certainly important, but so is the harnessing of intellect and experience amongst the members to really come up with proposals to shake the international tax scene. In any case, both activities can and should happen concurrently. Instead, I see the more 'developed' tax jurisdictions in the organization (whom i shall not name) sending senior albeit almost-retiring people; people who only respect the formalities and do not want to rock the boat.

Also, I can't help but see a varse difference in the level of intellectual discussions taking place in all these forums; forums consisting of the Asia Pacific jurisdictions are still so far behind those of Europe/North America. A lot has to do with the level of inconsistency (not to mention corruption) in the Asia Pacific.

Well, the only comforting thing is that at least I managed to get some insights from some Hong Kong tax practitioners about the Hong Kong and China situation. Interestingly, although it is common knowledge that Hong Kong and Singapore have adopted different fiscal policies when it comes to the tax system, the fundamental concerns and beliefs of the two jurisdictions do overlap somewhat.