More and more of the world's future business leaders are being groomed in Asia as MBA programmes in the region jockey with more established peers in the United States and Europe for top spots in academic rankings.
A Master of Business Administration degree is supposed to be a stepping stone to upper management in financial hubs such as New York and London. That time-tested route is swerving to Hong Kong and other Asian centres, where economies are growing against an otherwise dreary global backdrop.
'The Western students took a while to find Hong Kong', but the fallout from the global economic crisis is bringing greater numbers here, said Steven DeKrey, a senior associate dean of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) Business School.
'They look where the jobs are and where the growth is and they get a lot of excitement about what is happening in Asia.'
Admissions offices at local business schools have started accepting applications for next year's class. And the number of candidates is expected to increase from this year - at the likely expense of MBA programmes in the US and Europe, where job prospects and postgraduate opportunities are relatively grim.
The Graduate Management Admission Council, which offers the GMAT test required by most MBA programmes, reported the number of test scores sent to Hong Kong-based business schools nearly doubled between 2005 and last year to 6,731, reflecting an increase in the number of applications.
However, that was still just 0.84 per cent of the global total last year.
