Hong Kong’s health minister has said the government will not lose out if the medical centre of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) repays its public loan early, rejecting calls for a penalty. Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau’s comments came at a Legislative Council health services panel meeting on Friday, when CUHK Medical Centre…
Hong Kong has raised HK$27.6 billion (US$3.5 billion) through a green and infrastructure bond sale to finance the Northern Metropolis and low-carbon transformation projects. The offering drew investors from more than 30 markets across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas, signalling global institutional investors’ confidence in Hong Kong’s development, the Hong Kong Monetary…
Congratulations to Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po for getting the city’s budget to sail through the Legislative Council. It wasn’t always such smooth sailing and Chan would do well to acknowledge as much. When Chan was first given the keys to the city’s coffers, they were full. Successive financial secretaries faced political pressure of a…
Hong Kong’s Exchange Fund, the war chest used to defend the local currency, reported its smallest investment gain in five quarters as the Middle East crisis weighed on stock market performance. The fund gained HK$34.5 billion (US$4.4 billion) in the first quarter, 56 per cent lower than HK$79.2 billion a year earlier, according to data…
As Hong Kong prepares for another major push in public works, one question deserves far more attention than it has received: are we buying infrastructure in a way that is sustainable for the construction industry and the public as a whole? In his February budget, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po announced that HK$150 billion (US$19.1…
Hong Kong’s financial chief has revised the city’s fiscal surplus for the previous year to HK$11 billion (US$1.91 billion), nearly four times the original estimate, saying the ongoing Middle East conflict had a limited impact on the economy with gross domestic product (GDP) growth remaining strong in the first quarter. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po…
For the first time in its history – and in a striking departure from its long-standing doctrine of minimal economic intervention – Hong Kong is preparing to draw up a five-year plan. Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu has asked all policy bureaus to help draft proposals by the end of the year. To lead the…
In the summer of 1998, the usually placid air at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s headquarters in Citibank Tower suddenly evaporated as regional currencies collapsed like dominoes. Rapacious speculators had shorted currencies such as the Thai baht, the Indonesian rupiah and the Korean won and had profited handsomely. The contagion looked like it would also…
Hong Kong is not just China’s economic sandbox but also a driver of the country’s development, the finance chief has said, calling the city the nation’s international financial centre. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said on Monday that Hong Kong must move swiftly to embrace artificial intelligence (AI) and “get empowered” in its use, as…
Hong Kong has adequate safeguards to prevent any misuse of the Exchange Fund, according to the economist known as the “father of the city’s dollar peg”, who called concerns over the government’s decision to draw from the de facto sovereign wealth fund “a little overblown”. John Greenwood said the government’s plan to transfer HK$150 billion…