RLB in Hong Kong: 50 Years at a Glance 回顧利比香港五十載

19Edwin LeeRetired as Partner in 1984Congratulation to this company’s 50th Anniversary.Although I immigrated to Canada twenty nineyears ago, my heart has never left this wonderfulbig family. So, I would like to have your permissionto call you all, my colleagues.Also I would like to take this opportunity to thankmy mentor and good friend, Denis Levett. He ledme to acquire all the skills and experiences tobecome a successful quantity surveyor.Looking back at these 50 years and seeing thisorganization start from a small office and nowbecoming a major international quantity surveyingfirm with offices in Hong Kong, Macau, China andKorea, I feel so proud to be a part of it. We haveestablished good traditions of value and respect ofstaff and that is how we made this Levett andBailey firm a big family.Levett and Bailey was the first quantity surveyingfirm to go into China. Denis and I went to China inthe mid-70’s to explore the opportunities ofworking inside China. By late 70’s, we secured ourvery first major project in China, the Jingling Hotelin Nanjing. We also signed the very firstappointment letter for full quantity surveyingservices for this project in Chinese and later weproduced the very first Bills of Quantities in bothEnglish and Chinese.Congratulation again and I wish you all the bestand hope that many more offices will be opened,especially in China. With our tradition of honesty,hardworking and loyalty, I am sure you can do it.Keep on expanding and I look forward to seeingyou all, perhaps in the “60th Anniversary”celebrations.Here are a few highlights of the historicalachievements of this firm. Levett and Baileyhelped a lot in grooming young quantity surveyorsand promoting quantity surveying in Hong Kong. Infact, the very first quantity surveyor qualifiedlocally in Hong Kong is from this firm. Throughorganising lectures in Productivity Centre in HongKong in the 70’s, we have spread and promotedquantity surveying to other fields such asdevelopment companies, banks, constructioncompanies, other professional firms, etc.Edwin Lee and Denis Levettin China in late 1970s