I can’t help myself… I really want and need to blog about this…

I read a newspaper report today and discovered that in a global survey, Sydney was ranked behind Tokyo, Hong Kong, singapore and Seoul (of all places) as the top financial centres of the Asia Pacific (see a report here).

Seriously… how did Seoul - that suffered a major financial crisis not 10 years ago and was recipient of the biggest bail-out package from the IMF in all of history - rank higher than Sydney in terms of being a financial hub is beyond me…!?!? What makes it more intriguing and interesting is that Seoul ranked 9 globally whilst Sydney lagged behind at number 14.

What does this survey actually say?

That the survey is flawed? That this is testimony to the South Koreans ability to bounce back and claw their way to the top? That Sydney isn’t the great vibrant financial centre of the Asia-Pacific that it likes to think it is?!?

What’s pathetic though is how this is being reported in some of the local media - rather than focus on how the country has performed in this survey vis-a-vis its neighbours, it chose to advertise how Sydney pipped itself over Melbourne which was ranked 34… (see, for example, this and this - these are some of Australia’s top news sources, by the way). I don’t think I need to point out how parochial this is… or maybe I do seeing as how some people obviously can’t see the forest for the trees…

Posted on June 14th, 2007 by jl
Filed under: Life!