The Hong Kong government has stepped up efforts to turn the city into an international gold trading hub. Officials have unveiled plans to build large-scale bullion storage, expand refining capacity and launch a government-owned gold clearing system as the city looks to diversify its financial services sector, the SAR’s public broadcaster RTHK reports.
Speaking at a ceremony marking the commodity’s first trading day of the Year of the Horse last Friday, Joseph Chan, Undersecretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, said authorities aimed to make Hong Kong a regional gold storage centre with more than 2,000 tonnes of gold held in the city within three years.
Chan said the government was encouraging bullion dealers to establish or expand gold refining operations in Hong Kong, had signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Shenzhen Municipal Financial Regulatory Bureau to support Hong Kong-based gold dealers, and would promote closer cooperation with the well-established Shanghai Gold Exchange.
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He also noted that a government-owned gold clearing system was expected to start trail operations in the SAR later this year.
Earlier this year, secretary for Hong Kong’s treasury secretary Christopher Hui said that strengthening co-operation between Hong Kong and Shanghai’s gold sectors carried “profound significance”. He noted that the precious metal’s strategic importance had increased substantially “amid heightened geopolitical uncertainty, inflationary pressures, and ongoing restructuring of the international monetary system” in recent years.
Investors tend to turn to gold during periods of economic instability and geopolitical flare-ups. Its price soared to a record high of US$5,110.50 in late January, following its biggest annual gain since 1979 in 2025. Analysts attribute these surges, at least in part, to US President Donald Trump’s erratic tariff policies and increasingly hawkish stance on foreign affairs.
The SAR’s financial secretary Paul Chan Mo has described further developing Hong Kong’s gold market as a way to create “new and diversified opportunities” for the city while contributing to national growth. Hendrick Sin, a Hong Kong deputy to the National People’s Congress, has said that having more gold – and other commodities – traders concentrated in Hong Kong would raise demand for associated services, and could help internationalise the yuan.
