Exclusive | EU budget chief pitches collaboration and bonds on Hong Kong leg of Asia tour The European Union will remain open to capital from mainland China and Hong Kong even as the bloc pursues a “de-risking” strategy in certain key sectors, its budget chief has said on his first visit to the city. Piotr Serafin, the European commissioner for budget, anti-fraud and public administration, also said that the EU was keen to explore opportunities for financial collaboration with Hong Kong in areas such as green bonds, describing the city as a “bridge” to Asia. It is understood that Serafin’s trip, which ran from Sunday to Wednesday morning, marked the first time a member of the EU’s executive cabinet had visited the city since before the Covid-19 pandemic. Throughout his trip, which included meetings with government officials and attending the HSBC Global Investment Summit, Serafin sought to promote EU bonds as an “extremely strong” option for investors looking to diversify their assets. Asked by the South China Morning Post in an exclusive interview how he squared courting Chinese capital at a time when the EU was pursuing a strategy of reducing its dependencies on the country, Serafin said: “I think we are very clear that we’re in the business of de-risking, but not decoupling.” “When we talk about de-risking, indeed the focus is on some strategic sectors where we believe we need to be able to regain what I would call strategic autonomy, but when it comes to the finances, Europe has been and will remain open, and that will not change,” he said. According to an SCMP exclusive report on Tuesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen quietly approved a plan in March to stop EU funds from going to clean technology projects containing Chinese inverters. The bloc was also seeking to diversify into emerging digital technologies and critical rare earth materials. The European Commission has in recent years increasingly turned to issuing EU bonds – which are separate from the sovereign bonds issued by individual member states – to fund key priority programmes, including support for Ukraine and defence investments. The bloc is set to issue €90 billion (US$106 billion) worth of long-term EU bonds in the first half of 2026, while total outstanding debt was around €792 billion. Explaining the decision to come to Hong Kong, Serafin said the city has traditionally served as a “bridge” between Europe and Asia and that he was keen to develop financial cooperation between the two regions. “Hong Kong is, from the perspective of the financial services, the third largest financial centre globally, and the biggest in Asia,” he said. “So if you have a pitch to make on the EU bonds, Hong Kong is the place to be.” But he declined to comment when asked about ongoing political concerns about Hong Kong, as expressed by others in Europe. Serafin said green bonds – a priority for both jurisdictions – had come up in his meetings and were an area where there was “definitely” room for potential collaboration. The Hong Kong government has been actively building the city’s status as a sustainable finance hub, issuing about HK$250 billion (US$31.9 billion) worth of green bonds as of last November. The EU has also positioned itself as a global leader in sustainable finance, with about €80.4 billion worth of green bonds issued to date in support of the bloc’s NextGenerationEU recovery package. Asian investors have increasingly sought to diversify their assets – including moving away from US Treasuries – as markets react to global turmoil, including the war in the Middle East and US President Donald Trump’s trade policies. He said EU bonds were particularly enticing to investors as they were AAA-rated assets with strong liquidity and what he described as “quite attractive” yields. The EU is the third-largest issuer of AAA-rated public debt globally, behind Germany and Canada. The EU bonds were also backed by the bloc’s budget, and were less sensitive to political developments occurring in individual member states, he said. Addressing concerns surrounding the effect of the war in Iran on euro zone bond yields, which have fluctuated widely since the conflict’s outbreak, Serafin said the EU bond market was “doing much better than other alternative offers.” https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3350173/eu-budget-chief-pitches-collaboration-and-bonds-hong-kong-leg-asia-tour?pgtype=live (ICE HONG KONG)

Fonte notizia: South China Morning Post