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Enoch Yiu

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) will work with authorities on the mainland to develop the Greater Bay Area and expand cross-border trading schemes to strengthen the city’s status as an international financial centre, according to the HKMA’s CEO.
Eddie Yue Wai-man, who will start his second five-year term as the city’s de facto central banker on Tuesday, said development of the Greater Bay Area has been slower than expected. Beijing rolled out its blueprint for the Greater Bay Area project, which seeks to integrate Hong Kong, Macau and nine mainland cities into an economic powerhouse by 2035, in February 2019.
“The three-year Covid-19 pandemic has slowed down the development of the Greater Bay Area”, Yue said in an interview last week.
“Over the next five years, I will like to do more to promote cross-border trading and fund flow in the development area.”
Asked about his wish list, Yue said he would like to make it easier for Hong Kong companies to transfer money to pay salaries and other expenses at their Greater Bay Area operations.
He would also like it to be simpler for Hong Kong residents to transfer money to the mainland so they can pay for their medical costs and other daily expenses if they choose to live or retire in the bay area. According to the Hong Kong government, around 88,000 of the city’s residents were living in Guangdong province for most of their time at the end of 2022, an increase of about 11 per cent from five years earlier.
Mainland China has tight capital controls in place, but in February, it made it easier for Hongkongers to transfer funds into the bay area for property purchases. Yue wants to see these kinds of relaxations expanded in the coming years. At present, one can only remit up to 80,000 yuan (US$11,015) a day from Hong Kong to the mainland.
The HKMA chief also said he would like to see greater liberalisation in the many connect schemes that facilitate cross-border trading between the city and the mainland. In 2014, China unveiled the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect programme, which allows international investors to trade mainland stocks, while people from the mainland can trade Hong Kong shares.

It launched the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect in 2016, inaugurated a Bond Connect scheme a year later and then expanded things to allow for cross-border trading of ETFs, swaps and wealth-management products.
“We have a lot of connect schemes already,” Yue said. “As such, the way forward is not to add in new connect schemes, but it is more likely to widen the existing connect schemes.”
He would also like for mainlanders to be able to use yuan to trade Hong Kong stocks under the Stock Connect programme, which would strengthen the city as a centre for trading the yuan.
Yue, who just celebrated his 60th birthday on September 21st with a trip to Chengdu to visit the Sanxingdui archaeological site, joined HKMA at its establishment in 1993 and was promoted to his current role in 2019.
His first day as CEO of the HKMA, October 1, 2019, came at the peak of the social unrest during the pro-democracy protests, and there were rumours of bank runs. His team quickly dispelled those rumours.
Yue’s first term was full of struggles, from the social unrest of 2019 to the three years of Covid-19 restrictions that kept borders closed and international financiers away from the city. The HKMA organised the Global Financial Leaders’ Investment Summits in 2022 and 2023, which brought financial chiefs to Hong Kong and communicated that the city was once again open for business. The third edition of the summit will be held in November.
“While many rumours spreading on social media talk about capital outflows from Hong Kong over the past years, the fact is the opposite,” he said.
Total bank deposits in Hong Kong rose 26 per cent from 2019 to 2023, while assets under management increased 30 per cent during the same period, he said.
Over the past five years, he said, total yuan deposits jumped 80 per cent to 1.2 trillion yuan, while the yuan-denominated dim sum bond market grew in size to 780 billion yuan in 2023 from 330 billion yuan in 2019.
Yue said in his second five year term, the HKMA will continue to promote Hong Kong as a financial centre, as well as a leader in fintech and green finance. Hong Kong overtook Singapore as the top financial centre in Asia, according to the Global Financial Centres Index released last week.
Yue’s second term is likely to be different from his first as the world enters an environment of lower interest rates. During his first term, the HKMA followed the US Federal Reserve by increasing its base rate from zero to a 13-year high of 5.75 per cent. But the HKMA recently followed the Fed by cutting its rate by a half point to 5.25 per cent.
“The uncertainties of the rate-cut cycle in the coming years, alongside the geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and the US and China trade conflicts, will be among the key challenges faced by the HKMA and Hong Kong as a whole,” he said.


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The de facto central bank will work with mainland authorities to develop the Greater Bay Area and expand cross-border trading, CEO Eddie Yue says


The de facto central bank will work with mainland authorities to develop the Greater Bay Area and expand cross-border trading, CEO Eddie Yue says.
