CITY AND SUBURBAN
Hong Kong prepares for an invasion by General Montgomery
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
MHong Kong y friends here are bracing them- selves for the General Montgomery marti- ni. Named after the commander who wanted the odds in his favour, it fights at a strength of fifteen gins to one vermouth, takes no prisoners, and is a speciality of the Ritz Carlton hotel in Boston. Now there is to be a twin Ritz Carlton, here in Hong Kong — just down the road from the incomparable Mandarin. The place is posi- tively sprouting with new hotels, and shop- ping malls to match. It is true that they are not all of them full. Since the Tokyo stock market fell out of bed last year, there has been an interruption in the supply of amazingly rich Japanese. (Dry your eyes.) Hong Kong always overdoes things, there is rather too much office property about, prices are down and have further to go. For all that, the upsurge of steel and glass speaks for itself. Even here, no one would expect to put up an hotel and recoup his investment in six years — the six which now remain before the flag is hauled down and Hong Kong is supposed to become the capitalist bit of China. It is a bet on the economic future which includes a willing- ness to run the political risk.
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