So Bruce, what are we seeing from mainland Chinese
companies when it comes to adding gender diversity now?
Well, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has a rule
that took effect at the beginning of last year,
giving companies three years to have gender diversity on their
boards. So we're about halfway there. The big
obstacle for a long time has been the group of
companies from mainland China that have all male boards that
is starting to shrink now. So at the moment
, there are now 55 companies from the mainland that
still don't have a woman on their boards. That's
out of the six he index companies. So all
but one of them are from mainland China. Most
recently, we've seen me the big food delivery company
from China add its first woman to the board.
There are other companies that have yet to do that
but have said that they're considering, for instance,
by the automaker Xiaomi, the smartphone maker have both
said that while at the moment, they still don't
have a woman on the board, it's something that
they're actively considering they have until the end of next
year to have gender diversity on their boards Bruce how
does Hong Kong compare to other markets? Hong Kong
is one thing to say is that Hong Kong has
made a lot of progress. So a year ago
, women accounted for 15.7% of directorships in Hong Kong
. That number is now 19.3. Hong Kong is
therefore ahead of Japan which only has about 16.6% of
its directorships held by women. Hong Kong is far
behind other markets, Australia has more than a third
. There are the target that a lot of people
have for representation on boards is should aim for 30%
of a board to be female. There are some
Hong Kong companies, the Hang Seng Index that have
reached that target but still a long way to go
. The first step is just adding a first woman
. Again, the deadline for that is the end
of next year.