Hong Kong’s 5-year plan, policy continuity offer investors more stability, experts sayLonger-term vision and policies with continuity mapped out in Hong Kong’s inaugural five-year plan, along with the latest policy blueprint, offer investment opportunities and more stability for investors, according to experts and commentators.Hong Kong marked a historic milestone on Wednesday when Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu unrolled the city’s first five-year development plan with his fifth policy address to align with China’s long-term national strategy.The explicit directions Lee set for Hong Kong in terms of economic and social development are seen as ensuring persistence in policies even if there are any changes in the government leadership. This is Lee’s final policy address of his current five-year term as chief executive.The 22 indicators in the five-year plan include five binding and 17 anticipatory goals, which will be accounted for in Lee’s annual work report to Chinese President Xi Jinping.In the 60,000-word five-year plan running to 2030, Lee spelled out the city’s core positioning under the “four centres, one hub” concept, which refers to Hong Kong as a financial, maritime, aviation, and trade centre as well as a high-calibre talent hub.The policy address, over 40,000 words, offers five major development opportunities spanning talent, industry, business investment, institutional safeguards and international cooperation.This is in addition to 25 key livelihood initiatives ranging from youth development, housing and healthcare to artificial intelligence and education.The centrepiece of development will be the 30,000-hectare Northern Metropolis, a business, education and housing megaproject near the border with Shenzhen. It will serve the important strategic goals of promoting high-standard tertiary education via a university town, innovation and technology, industry development and gathering talent, in alignment with the national five-year plan.The megaproject is subject to a binding target of raising “spade-ready sites” from 120 to 900 hectares by 2030.Another initiative that presents opportunities to both local and foreign investors is Lee’s decision to expedite the building of an international gold trading market and deepen the city’s offshore renminbi businesses, develop an international asset and wealth management centre and international risk management centre, enhance the securities market and expand fixed-income and commodity trading.Hong Kong is China’s largest offshore yuan business hub, with 1.1 trillion yuan in offshore deposits as of June and handling more than 70 per cent of all global offshore yuan payments, according to official statistics.The yuan push would go hand in hand with Hong Kong’s vision to build a commodity ecosystem, especially with measures to expand gold trading in the city, according to Mak, as backing renminbi-denominated assets with gold bullion stored in Hong Kong would offer more assurance to investors.Andrew Gaw, managing director of trader Solid Gold Investments, said the precious metal was a hot asset and gold trading was crucial to the city’s strength as a global financial centre.However, Hong Kong is facing strong competition from markets such as London and Singapore in the gold business.Gold prices jumped about 17 per cent over the past year to HK$34,099 per ounce on Wednesday.In February, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent vowed to scrutinise more closely Beijing’s use of Hong Kong for sandbox experiments in gold-backed digital assets that could rival the US dollar.Shui of the think tank said the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s plan to introduce a tendering mechanism for seven-day offshore renminbi liquidity and explore issuing short-term debt instruments was among investor-friendly measures to boost liquidity of the currency.He pointed out that government safeguards and initiatives such as building a global capital of mediation and combating the use of artificial intelligence in criminal activities would offer protection to investors.https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3367773/hong-kongs-5-year-plan-policy-continuity-offer-investors-more-stability-experts-say?pgtype=live (ICE HONG KONG)

Fonte notizia: South China Morning Post