Vice-Premier He Lifeng on Tuesday urged Hong Kong to deepen financial reform and innovation, expand financial openness and cooperation, and further align itself with national development goals to cement the city’s status as a world financial center.
The vice-premier made the call in a keynote address to the third Global Financial Leaders’ Investment Summit in Hong Kong, themed “Sailing Through Changes”. The two-day conference, organized by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and attended by more than 100 group chairmen or chief executive officers of major global major financial institutions, will examine how changes in the macro environment, geopolitics, technological innovation and climate change can affect international financial markets.
“Hong Kong should continue seizing the precious critical period of development, and improving the level of financial development to consolidate and enhance its status as a global financial center,” He said.
He proposed three directions for Hong Kong’s financial sector. First, the special administrative region should further strengthen the banking industry, steadily expand the bond market, actively develop the insurance market, and build up a higher-level international asset and wealth management center, so that the local financial industry can continuously cultivate new financial growth points and create new competitive advantages.
“Based on its own actual and development needs, Hong Kong must strengthen exchanges and mutual learning with other international financial centers around the world, actively learn from and absorb the latest experiences and results of global financial reform and development, and always be at the forefront of global financial development,” He said.
The SAR also needs to further align itself with the nation’s development strategy, and should continuously beef up its role as a key financing node of the Belt and Road Initiative. “Hong Kong should firmly grasp the development strategy of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and continue to promote the integration of rules, mechanism docking and key work arrangements.”
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Li Yunze, minister of the National Financial Regulatory Administration, said the Chinese mainland financial regulator encourages mainland banking and insurance institutions to set up their overseas regional headquarters in Hong Kong to provide one-stop financial services for mainland enterprises when expanding their operations overseas.
The NFRA will also support more mainland insurance companies in issuing catastrophe bonds in Hong Kong to cement the city as a risk management hub and accelerate development of the international reinsurance market.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission pledged to further improve the efficiency of overseas listing registration, and support qualified domestic companies in going public overseas. The securities market watchdog said it may expand the connectivity of depositary receipts to attract global medium and long-term funds, and carry out cross-border supervision and law enforcement cooperation on securities and futures.
“Hong Kong is an important bridge connecting the mainland capital market with the world. The commission will anchor the goal of high-level institutional opening and remain committed to deepening two-way opening of the capital market for facilitating cross-border investment,” CSRC Chairman Wu Qing told the summit.
For Hong Kong, the upside opportunities in the financial sector will be in the emerging sectors such as financial technology, green and sustainable finance, and the offshore renminbi financing business.
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Acting Chief Executive Eric Chan kwok-ki said Hong Kong will boost the Cross-boundary Wealth Management Connect Scheme and southbound trading under the Bond Connect. “We are working to expand our offers, providing more diversified yuan-denominated investment products, increasing the issuance of yuan-denominated bonds and supporting more green and sustainable offshore renminbi bond issuances in Hong Kong,” he said.
In organizing the summit, HKMA Chief Executive Eddie Yue Wai-man said the focus is on the twin aspects of how Hong Kong can build resilience and a strong buffer mechanism to withstand and respond to external shocks, as well as how to seize the opportunities arising from the Chinese mainland’s transformation.
