Hong Kong financial secretary Paul Chan has outlined plans for the SAR to overtake Switzerland as the world’s biggest asset and wealth management centre by 2027.
The aim was to ensure Hong Kong’s financial stability and security amid ongoing tensions between China and the US, which Chan told media last Friday would require a cross-market, round-the-clock monitoring system put in place to detect and handle risks at an early stage.
He also said the city needed a “strong buffer” in the form of capital adequacy and liquidity coverage ratios at 21 percent and 70 percent respectively to absorb shocks, the South China Morning Post reports.
Chan, whose tenure winds up in 2027, said his priority was for Hong Kong to “stay ahead of the competition” through leveraging competitive strengths like financial services. He said he saw strong potential in cross-boundary wealth management and insurance offerings for mainland companies.
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“At the moment, we are managing about US$4 trillion in assets, but I believe [there is] huge room for development,” Chan noted. “Our aim is to become globally number one in terms of asset and wealth management, overtaking Switzerland [in] 2027, latest 2028.”
According to the Post, Chan expected trade relations between China and the US to remain volatile in the coming years, despite the truce agreed by the two countries earlier this month in the UK. “There may be agreement for the short term, but there are bound to be ups and downs,” Chan has said of the deal. “We won’t underestimate the challenges arising from this tense relationship.”
He also noted that as many mainland companies were shifting their supply chains to Southeast Asia, Hong Kong should be building a high-value-added supply chain service centre. Hong Kong should “hand-hold them in their process of going abroad, to provide them with professional services, risk management, compliance and treasury services,” he said. Chan added that having mainland companies set up a Hong Kong presence allowed them to go global branded as Hong Kong companies.
“According to our interaction with Southeast Asia and the Middle East, the Hong Kong brand [is] indeed very well acknowledged in those markets,” he said.
