The new HKMA Information Centre opened to the public last week. The Centre, which consists of a Library and Exhibition Area, will play a key role in the HKMA's educational programmes.
One of the advantages of the HKMA's recent move into permanent office premises is that we have been able to custom-build facilities to enable work processes and services to be organised more efficiently. This applies not just to the design of daily operations, such as dealing rooms and IT infrastructure, but also to the provision of educational and information services - whether for staff or for the public generally. The HKMA Information Centre, which opened last week, will give a strong boost to our efforts in these areas and will provide a much-needed physical focus for our expanding educational programmes.
The Centre consists of a Library and an Exhibition Area. The Library, which holds the collections of both the HKMA and the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research, specialises in monetary, banking and economic subjects and includes a wide range of publications by central banks across the world and by international organisations. It also houses the public registry on authorized institutions maintained by the HKMA under the Banking Ordinance, which has recently been computerised. Of more general interest is the Exhibition Area, which contains panels, exhibits, audio-visual materials, and interactive features on the main work areas of the HKMA and on the history of banking and currency in Hong Kong. To judge by the programme of visits by schools and other organisations to the Centre drawn up for the coming couple of months or so, we expect this to be a popular and much visited facility. We also welcome individual visitors, who can call in to view the Exhibition or use the Library during normal opening hours.
This is not the first venture by the HKMA in this field. Far from it. Since our educational programmes began in 1998 some 24,000 students and teachers have attended more than 100 school talks organised by the HKMA at various locations. And around 200,000 visitors came to our exhibitions staged in 2000 and 2001 at shopping centres and universities. We have made good use of the experience gained at these events to arrange materials in a way most likely to arouse interest. We have placed particular emphasis on the subjects that seem to interest people most: coin and banknote design over the decades and the historical perspective of our work. Apart from panels and exhibits on these subjects - and an enormous timeline focusing on Hong Kong's monetary and banking history - the exhibition area also contains a section on topical subjects: currently, the topics include deposit protection and e-banking, but topics will change every few months to take into account new issues of concern and new initiatives. We shall also be developing the main exhibition in the light of the response from visitors.
Public education is not a peripheral part of our work. Money and banks are essential features of everyday life, and public confidence in our monetary and banking systems is a key factor in their stability. Confidence comes in large part from an understanding of how these systems work, and a true understanding is only possible with a high degree of transparency. The new Information Centre, together with our regular publications and our well-established website, will help in ensuring that the HKMA follows - and in some cases leads - best international practice in its transparency arrangements.
The HKMA Information Centre is open from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday to Friday and from 9:00 a.m. to noon on Saturdays. It is conveniently located on the 55th Floor of 2 IFC, close to Hong Kong Station, one of the busiest transport interchanges in Hong Kong. Do pay a visit if you are in the area. And do please let us know what you think.
Joseph Yam
11 December 2003
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