PEOPLE : Landy Eng to Head Hong Kong Office
Governor George Deukmeijian has appointed San Francisco entrepreneur Landy F. Eng as managing director of the new Hong Kong trade and investment office of the state of California.
Eng, 37, will open the Southeast Asian Office of Trade and Investment on Jan. 22. It will be California’s fifth overseas trade and investment office. The first was in Tokyo, followed by London, Mexico City and Frankfurt.
The Hong Kong office will concentrate on a region that includes Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries. California is moving into Hong Kong only seven years before China takes control of the colony from Britain. Much uncertainly surrounds the fate of Hong Kong.
“I don’t think the state of California has any assurances and I don’t think California needs any assurances,” Eng said in a telephone interview from San Francisco. “Our presence in Hong Kong is very adaptable. If the climate and business is there, the office should thrive. If climate and business should disappear, the office’s mission will not be there. For the short term from 1990 to 1997, I sense this kind of positioning is quite appropriate.”
California products account for about 25%, or $1.5 billion, of total annual U.S. exports to Hong Kong, according to Eng, who is currently president of his own consulting and trading firm, CBC International in San Francisco. He added that Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore together accounted for $6.5 billion of California exports, which compares to $4 billion for Canada and $3 billion for Mexico.
He is a director and past chairman of the Asian Business League and a board member of the World Affairs Council of Northern California. He was a member of the California World Trade Commission’s Export Finance Board and served as its chairman in 1987.
Eng, a New York native and graduate of New York University, held several positions in the Latin American international banking division of Citicorp from 1974 to 1977 before striking out on his own. In his new position, he will earn $71,040.
