FS sells Hong Kong as the global wealth management hub

Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po is currently flying the Hong Kong flag through Europe selling the city as the super-connector between China and the rest of the world, as well as it being the global wealth management hub.

Backing up Chan’s claims is the assessment of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), that Hong Kong has reinforced its position as a global financial center and super-connector between the Chinese mainland and the rest of the word. The city’s economy continues to recover from the COVID pandemic stronger than expected, supported by robust technology-related exports, improved private demand and a rebound in financial market activity.

It is the super-connector role that is central to sustaining Hong Kong’s position as a leading offshore renminbi (RMB) hub, as well as its involvement in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay area and, of course, the Northern Metropolis development. Hong Kong is the primary gateway linking China with the rest of the world, a position reinforced by its status as an international financial center and its unique "one country, two systems" framework. Hong Kong also acts as a "super value-adder" by providing high-level professional services, legal expertise, and supply chain management that help mainland enterprises expand overseas, and global companies access the Chinese market.

Equity fundraising and asset management activity, key elements in Chan’s European mission, have picked up since the pandemic alongside improved market sentiment, reinforcing Hong Kong’s role as a global financial center and super-connector between the Chinese mainland and the rest of the world, particularly in its role as a leading fundraising hub and premier offshore renminbi center.

Hong Kong, with its common law legal system and headquarters for the International Arbitration Center, is a catalyst for China’s economy accounting for about two thirds of China’s inward foreign direct investment (FDI) and outward direct investments passing through the city. So, it not only provides a channel for goods and services to go global but also catalyses the international usage of renminbi (RMB) along the process. Since the launch of the pilot scheme for cross-border trade settlement in renminbi in 2009, RMB trade settlement handled by banks in Hong Kong sees exponential growth, recording RMB 64 trillion (HK$73.6 trillion) in 2024 (the latest available figure) or a quarter of China’s cross border trade in goods.

However, it still has a bit more to go to be a dominant settlement currency. In December 2024 the RMB was the fourth most active currency after the US, EUR and GBP, overtaking the Japanese Yen for the position. Using RMB for settlement allows companies to avoid the two to three per cent higher administrative costs associated with USD transactions, eliminates the need for currency hedging against RMB volatility, and provides access to Chinese trade finance products.

The IMF report goes on with a bullish Hong Kong line, citing the Middle East crisis, which Hong Kong could rapidly “transmit” given the city’s “high degree of openness and financial interconnectedness.” It predicts that over the medium term, growth is projected to normalize to around 2.25 per cent.

“The Hong Kong economy expanded robustly in the first quarter of 2026. Looking ahead, Hong Kong's economic growth outlook is positive, underpinned by strong global demand for AI-related electronics, sustained growth in visitor arrivals and robust cross-boundary financial activities,” the IMF concluded.

Chan’s European mission kicked off in Paris where he attended a meeting of the Association Francaise de la Gestion Financiere (AFG), the French asset management association which has shown a keen interest in expanding its presence in Hong Kong amid market diversification and significant growth potential in the Greater Bay Area asset management market. It also offers a pool of potential investors in the Northern Metropolis project.

The AFG is a must target for Hong Kong seeking to boost it FDIs. Some 330 member firms account for 90 per cent of the US$5.8 trillion (HK$45.4 trillion) in assets under management in France, while assets under management in Hong Kong jumped to HK$35.14 trillion (US$4.48 trillion) in 2024, just $41 million (US$5.2 million) short of the 2021 record.

While the Financial Secretary makes progress in Europe, the upcoming visit by Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in early June indicates a strategic shift eastward in these efforts. Together, their activities create a strong two-pronged effect: Chan attracts Western capital seeking access to China’s mainland market, while Lee opens new growth pathways along the Belt and Road, channeling Central Asian investment into Hong Kong and beyond. This joint effort directly supports Hong Kong’s role in China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030), which highlights high-quality development, enhanced regional connectivity, and a “dual circulation” economic strategy. By positioning Hong Kong as a “hub-to-hub” bridge between Central Asia and East Asia and reaffirming its status as a global wealth management centre, the two officials are aiding the city in fulfilling its role as a premier offshore RMB centre, a super-connector, and a catalyst for cross-border trade and investment in line with the national blueprint.

The official visits overseas by Chan carries a simple message, Hong Kong is open for business. His purpose, as with other visits by government officials, is to counter, in part, all the negative publicity generated by the Jimmy Lai trial which suggests there are flaws in Hong Kong’s legal system, the backbone to the city’s successes.

Mark Pinkstone

** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **

The US State Department’s power grabbing agency, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is spending HK$4.036 million to infiltrate Hong Kong’s social fabric this year, according to its 2025 annual report.

But it could have been more had it not been for the intervention of Tesla billionaire Elon Musk. In February last year President Trump appointed Musk to look into wastage in his administration with a new government Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk immediately took aim at USAID, the umbrella agency for NED, which he criticized as “rife with corruption” and an “evil organization that needs to be dissolved.” He also described it as a scam.

NED went into a tailspin and immediately suspended all payments to its benefactors, causing them to lay off staff and cut expenditures.

In March, NED filed a lawsuit against the US government and was granted an injunction to allow access to the HK$743 million of its previously approved funds for 2025.

However, the allocation of funds for 2025 is still short of $78 million compared to 2024 budget.

The allocation to Hong Kong includes HK$782,000 to build international solidarity for defending freedoms and the rule of law, inform international stakeholders about regional political deterioration, advocate for strategic responses through legal mechanisms, and expand its international network of supporters through outreach and media engagement.

Another HK$2.34 million is reserved to build a civil society capacity to monitor government and counter censorship of official records and democratic narratives, the organization will conduct workshops training groups and individuals in using digitally secure methods for collecting and archiving materials related to government accountability for human rights violations and preserving the historical record. And it would provide support to political prisoners and those at-risk.

It is also spending HK$907,400 to strengthen the resilience of human rights defenders and their families, foster solidarity networks and conduct community-building campaigns.

The NED annual reports once named its beneficiaries who carried out subversive acts in various countries, but the practice stopped around 2011 (riots in Hong Kong) and now the recipients of the NED handouts are hidden in a cloud of secrecy.

China is the main recipient of NED’s attacks. It said in its latest report that China continued to keep an iron grip on politics and freedoms at home while seeking to solidify its growing influence globally.

It claims that “The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) escalated its repression in Hong Kong, Tibet, and East Turkestan, while exporting its model of digital censorship, transnational repression, and elite capture to neighboring countries and farther abroad.” The report further says that “NED-supported partners worked to expose CCP influence, expand independent information channels, and defend civic space.”

Looking ahead, in 2026  the NED will continue to invest most heavily in Asia, even as its most significant growth in grant making occurs in Latin America and the Caribbean. China-related programs—spanning the Mainland, Tibet, East Turkestan, Hong Kong, and China’s global influence— will remain its single largest area of investment.

“When countries can resist foreign authoritarian pressure, they become stronger partners for the United States,” the report boasts.

The first sentence in NED’s 2025 annual report is a lie that NED is a private, nonprofit foundation dedicated to advancing freedom and democracy worldwide. As part of the US’s Department of State drawing on public funds, it is hardly private and as for advancing freedom and democracy worldwide, NED is hellbent crippling regimes it doesn’t like in pursuit of world supremacy.