It was not until Chow Ping was forced to close his business on the mainland that he knew how much his mainland competitors had grown, and how much he underestimated them.

Chow had been running a manufacturing business in Dongguan since the 1990s. The competition in the Pearl River Delta has later grown too intense for him. He closed up shop in 2005.

"I didn't understand why my company was forced out of business. I wondered how would mainlanders have outdone me in business?" Chow told China Daily.

Chow's competitors, in fact, were mostly small and medium companies run by much younger and more energetic mainland Chinese. They don't necessarily have higher education or overseas training. Some learned the hard way, through hands-on experience.

"We used to talk in their offices. One of my friends tried to point out the loopholes in their process and the defects in their products. They told me they already were aware and then told us what they were going to do to solve the problems. They were only in their 30s," Chow recalled.

The former businessman returned to Hong Kong and started drawing income from his stock market investments. But he still had to go back to Shenzhen constantly to meet analysts to get their insights on different industries and on the performance of the companies that interested him.

"The quality of the analysts in Hong Kong is just not up to the level, because many of them are generalists, not industry experts. Whereas many of the analysts from the mainland are able to focus on one or a few areas, and they have the profound insights I need," said Chow.

Chow feels that Hong Kong people have been unaware of the competition they're facing from the mainland.

"I think that young people today need to learn about their peers on the mainland. They must know about the values and the capability of mainland Chinese of the same age - those are their future competitors," said Chow.

"In order to know the country and know about your competitors on the mainland, you must have the urge to learn actively about them. I don't think today's young people in Hong Kong have enough momentum to do that. But the momentum will grow - as they start to realize the reality," he said.

(HK Edition 08/30/2013 page2)