Hong Kong was the world's second-largest cross-boundary wealth management center in 2023, after Switzerland, and is also Asia's largest hedge fund hub. Private equity capital under management ranks second in Asia after the Mainland, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Christopher Hui, said at the Bloomberg Buy-Side Forum Hong Kong today (Sept. 26).

"In June 2022, the Central People's Government, the People's Bank of China, and the three Mainland policy banks were added to the list of "exempt authority" to facilitate MPF investment in sovereign bonds. It provides scheme members with greater access to one of the world's largest bond markets. In June last year, we also put in place a mechanism to earmark a certain proportion of Government green bonds for priority investment by MPF funds."

"These measures allow MPF fund managers to consider more investment instruments with stable returns in their portfolio management for the benefit of scheme members. As of June this year, MPF funds invested HK$8.3 billion and HK$600 million in sovereign bonds and government green bonds respectively, representing an increase of 159 percent and 50 percent respectively before the facilitative measures were put in place," Hui said.

Hui added that as with ongoing efforts to boost HK's position as the region's premier international financial center, HK offers three distinct types of dividends, namely "diversification", "succession" and "silver" dividends.

Hui pointed out that as China's hub for offshore Renminbi (RMB) business, HK holds about one trillion in RMB deposits, and processes about 80 percent of the global offshore RMB payments.

"We will continue to expand our RMB-denominated investment and risk-management products to suit users' needs."

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