HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- HSBC Holdings Plc. will look to fast-growing emerging markets in China and India, along with the booming Hispanic segment of the U.S. economy, as strategic pillars of growth, according to comments by Chief Executive Stephen Green cited in a published report Monday.
Green, speaking at the HSBC's annual shareholder meeting Friday, said it was difficult to gauge the outlook for the year ahead noting the bank sees opportunities and risks amid the tumult in global credit markets, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition. Green estimated India and China will eventually account for 60% of the bank's business.
Europe's largest bank, has a relatively modest exposure to U.K mortgages, with a 3.6% market share at the end of 2006. The bank's robust Far East business is seen as helping offset other areas of the banking sector which are not doing so well, such as lending in the wholesale market.
Green dismissed calls from activist investor Knight Vinke Asset Management, which holds less 1% of the bank's shares, to dispose of its U.S. operations "as unthinkable," the Journal reported.
Green also noted the U.S. subprime mortgage market remains under stress and pledged to close various businesses, continuing a paring-back of operations that it started last year. 
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