Recently, the World Financial Forum (WFF) and the Hong Kong International Financial Association co-hosted the academic seminar "Challenges, Future, and Prospects of Hong Kong as an International Financial Center" at the Shangri-La Hotel on Hong Kong Island, with support from Lexin Group and Hengbi Technology. More than twenty participants, including government officials, heads of financial institutions, experts, scholars, and industry representatives, gathered to discuss topics such as the current status, challenges and opportunities, future and prospects of Hong Kong's international financial center, and provided suggestions and strategies for strengthening and enhancing its status.
Zhu Guangyao, former Deputy Minister of Finance of China and Chief Advisor of the World Financial Forum and BRICS Think Tank, stated at the seminar that in recent years, despite the changing international landscape, Hong Kong's foreign exchange and stock markets have performed steadily in the global financial market. The foreign exchange market has maintained slight growth even during the pandemic; the bond market has grown steadily driven by increased demand in the offshore RMB bond market; and the wealth management center remains a highly competitive advantage for Hong Kong. Despite increasing challenges, in recent years, thanks to the strong efforts of the Hong Kong SAR government and support from all parties, the advantages of the innovation ecosystem are being realized. International low-carbon financing transactions are also continuously developing in Hong Kong and are expected to become a new trading center.
Zhu Guangyao stated that Hong Kong has made significant explorations in the development of digital currency, which is very important. The Hong Kong SAR government and regulatory agencies have regulated the cryptocurrency market through a series of clear rules and regulations, implementing penetrating supervision, and strictly reviewing and regulating cryptocurrency trading platforms, legalizing and ensuring compliance in cryptocurrency transactions. This fully reflects Hong Kong's unique advantages of being backed by the motherland and connecting with the world.
Tam Yiu-chung, Vice President of the Chinese Hong Kong and Macao Research Association, Consultant of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, and Secretary-General of the Hong Kong Re-start Alliance, stated that Hong Kong should accelerate the development of an offshore RMB center to promote the internationalization of the RMB. Currently, Hong Kong serves as an offshore RMB center, but the scale of RMB deposits in Hong Kong is relatively small, with the entire funding pool in recent years being around 600 billion to over 1 trillion RMB, necessitating a significant increase in the RMB funding pool in Hong Kong. The exchange rate of offshore RMB fluctuates greatly, posing substantial risks and making it difficult for the market to form RMB-denominated products. To establish a successful offshore RMB center, Hong Kong still has a long way to go.
Huang Jianbin, Chairman and CEO of Hengbi Technology (Code Coin), stated that stablecoins are of great significance in the Web 3.0 era, with convenient and compliant cross-border settlement functions. Issuing stablecoins is the key to connecting the Web 3.0 world. As an international financial center, Hong Kong can fully leverage its foreign exchange reserve advantages and the results of defending the Hong Kong dollar peg system established in 1998 to launch a Hong Kong dollar stablecoin. In addition, by adopting a reasonable regulatory sandbox mechanism and introducing high-quality institutions with successful experiences, the potential of the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin in cross-border settlements can be explored, enhancing Hong Kong's financial service capabilities in the Web 3.0 field and further consolidating its status as an international financial center.
Feng Xingke, Secretary-General of the World Financial Forum and Director of the BRICS Think Tank, stated that under the current international and domestic situation, although there are challenges in building Hong Kong as an international financial center, it also faces unprecedented opportunities. The financial industry is the pillar industry of Hong Kong's economy, and Hong Kong has a series of conditions that can continuously consolidate and enhance its status as an international financial center, including a sound legal system, a comprehensive and competitive tax system, the convenience of free capital flow, a complete market system, the co-construction and connectivity of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, efficient financial regulation, a rich variety of financial products, and a tokenized ecosystem, especially tokenized assets, cross-border payments and stablecoins, generative artificial intelligence, central bank digital currencies, etc. It is believed that the Hong Kong international financial center will become better and better, and its future is worth looking forward to.
Xiao Geng, Professor and Associate Dean of the School of Public Policy at CUHK (Shenzhen) and President of the Hong Kong International Financial Association, suggested that the Greater Bay Area should enhance the advantages of Hong Kong's internationally leading open financial system through institutional innovation, integrating the advantages of mainland cities in the Greater Bay Area in industry, market, multi-level talent, data, and spatial resources, significantly improving the efficiency, scale, and competitiveness of Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area as the core platform for China's external circulation economic financial development strategy, laying a foundation for Hong Kong to explore enormous opportunities in new fields such as the Belt and Road Initiative, green development, digital finance, and technological innovation.
