Asia’s powerhouse ready to return
After the ups and downs of the past three years involving lockdowns, protests and market turmoil, Hong Kong is ready to make its comeback.
The economy is primed, the city’s shops and hotels are open again to welcome tourists and business folk, and it’s all systems go for business and investment.
Prominent members of the Better Hong Kong Foundation (BHKF), a non-profit think tank formed by the city’s business and community leaders, see plenty of reasons for optimism, reported the South China Morning Post.
Residents take great encouragement from recent policy statements, notably Chinese President Xi Jinping’s July 1 speech marking the 25th anniversary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, which confirmed the city’s “distinctive status and advantages”.
Tussle in the south-east
In the most recent rankings of financial centres, Singapore being ahead of Hong Kong was a talking point, with the island nation successfully reopening without restrictions.
The city-state saw more than 4 million visitors in 2022 and ran a number of high-profile events including the Forbes CEO Conference and the Singapore Grand Prix.
Businesses weary of the Hong Kong restrictions, and the strict quarantine, shifted to Singapore. However, the Hong Kong government is confident about its future competitiveness as an international financial centre.
A spokesperson said that they would “continue to listen to views and be bold in taking forward reforms to consolidate and strengthen Hong Kong’s capital market and our role as an intentional financial centre”.
Big Apple still packs most crunch
New York tops most surveys of global financial centres. Wall Street, and more widely NYC, remains streets ahead as the world’s most favoured financial centre, with London remaining second and Singapore overtaking Hong Kong to come in third – the latest rankings from the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI) show.
While the list, released late last year, is ostensibly a reflection of attitudes in the global financial industry, it’s more than just about bragging rights or prestige as the index could influence dealmaking in some cases.
Interesting to see that Paris returned to the top 10 to replace Tokyo, but Moscow sank 22 places to 73rd, as western countries severed ties with the capital after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, GFCI said.
Financial centres in China continued to rise. Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen are now among top 10 global financial centres. Guangzhou (25th), Chengdu (34th) and Qingdao (36th) also made it into the top 50, while Taipei took the 55th spot.
Our take
While it’s unlikely that any list or survey is likely to alter an experienced investor’s habits, it’s always interesting to keep tabs on what perceptions are out there.
Often non-economic factors – notably the pandemic and associated health policies – affect a financial venue’s reputation, as illustrated by Hong Kong’s slight fall, and as Tokyo’s relatively low spot also shows, heritage alone cannot sustain a centre’s aura.