The city is a major financing centre for biotechnology; it must now cement its reputation as a research hub. It already has two key advantages: world-class universities and a wealth of clinical and medical data.
An HKU team was one of the first to come up with a potential vaccine, but its bumpy development process makes one thing clear: Hong Kong has the talent but not the ecosystem to bring biotechnological breakthroughs to market.
Currently, there is no international central securities depository covering Asia. With its links to mainland China and the world, Hong Kong is best equipped to establish a regional settlement intermediary for securities transactions.