The HKMA Information Centre, which opened at our new offices in December 2003, has proved to be popular with visitors.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority's Information Centre, which opened to the public on 1 December 2003, has already received more than 60,000 visitors. Around half of these visitors have come in organised groups, and have been given tours by the staff or by our student ambassadors at the Centre. The rest have been individual visitors, who have either dropped in while in the area or made special visits on the recommendation of friends. We have been pleased to welcome visitors of all ages and from many different parts of the world, as well as from Hong Kong. We are particularly happy to see so many visitors from two groups - students and senior citizens - who between them make up around half of all of the visitors to the Centre.
Not unexpectedly, it is the historical and interactive exhibits at the Centre that draw the most attention. Historical banknotes and coins are always popular, and the various exhibits loaned by the note-issuing banks and by Hong Kong Note Printing Limited have added to the attractions. The huge historical timeline, which covers an entire eighteen-metre-long wall of the Centre, tends to trigger quite a lot of discussion, particularly among visitors with memories of some of the recent, and not-quite-so-recent, events depicted in it. The physical exhibits have been complemented by a number of lively talks at the Centre on the history of money and banking in Hong Kong by one of Hong Kong's leading experts on the subject, Mr Cheng Po-hung. These talks are always oversubscribed, as are the various talks we have organised on the work of the HKMA: we shall be organising more in the future.
The interactive exhibits include computer quizzes on all aspects of the HKMA's work and special exhibits on the security features of Hong Kong banknotes. The subject of banknote security features has been a particular focus of activity at the Centre over the past year following the issue of the new series of Hong Kong banknotes, with their advanced security features. Apart from the exhibits, we organised a number of seminars on this subject at the Centre, in addition to extensive district visits by HKMA staff and student ambassadors. We are grateful to our colleagues in the Commercial Crime Bureau of the Hong Kong Police for their participation in many of these seminars, and for the loan of interesting samples of counterfeit banknotes.
We sometimes wish that the panels explaining the work and policy objectives of the HKMA receive a little more attention than they do. It has to be admitted that some of the subjects they deal with are of specialised interest and are not always amenable to lively treatment. We have done our best to make the explanations clear, and to bring out the significance of what we do. No doubt there is room for more work here, and we welcome ideas from readers about how we can improve them. It is nevertheless good to see that the even more specialised parts of the Information Centre - contained in the Library just around the corner from the Exhibition Area - are being well used by the many researchers, students and practitioners interested in the books and journals on central banking and related topics.
The HKMA Information Centre is an evolving institution. We hope that visitor numbers will continue to increase, and we plan to change exhibits from time to time to reflect new initiatives by the HKMA, and in response to suggestions and demand. We have already had several helpful ideas from visitors about how to improve and expand some of the exhibits and we look forward to receiving more. Do please call in when you are near our offices in Two IFC and give us your ideas. The HKMA Information Centre is open from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday to Friday, and from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Saturdays.
Joseph Yam
24 March 2005
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