Opinion | Let 2023 be the year in which Hong Kong’s fortunes turn around

And what a year it’s been! For sports fans, the Fifa World Cup was a highlight, with a projected five billion people globally watching some part of the month-long tournament. The most popular sporting event on the planet saw a host of records broken – from the most goals scored in the tournament, to Lionel Messi breaking 10 World Cup records, including being the first player to score in every round. The final and Argentina’s fairy-tale ending is being described as one of the greatest football matches of all time.

Hong Kong swimming phenomenon Siobhan Haughey made a splash, winning seven gold medals at the Fina Swimming World Cup. She also triumphed at the Fina World Championships with a gold and silver to her name.

Economically, it has been a turbulent year. Tens of trillions of dollars were wiped off the world’s stock markets. Tech stocks were crushed, with Meta Platforms, Peloton and Tesla falling more than 60 per cent.

Inflation in both the United States and the United Kingdom rose to 40-year highs, driven mostly by surging food, gas and energy prices on the back of the Russia-Ukraine war. US interest rates rose to its highest in 15 years as the Federal Reserve targeted inflation, and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority increased its base rate to 4.75 per cent, close to its 15-year high.

Previous Wall Street cryptocurrency darlings experienced a brutal meltdown. The spectacular crash of stablecoin TerraUSD and its sister token Luna, which plunged to near-zero, evaporated about US$45 billion from the market.

The dramatic collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange FTX and subsequent fallout involving cryptocurrency lender BlockFi, bitcoin and ether has shaken the cryptocurrency industry to the core. An estimated US$1.5 trillion in cryptocurrency market capitalisation has been erased, roughly the gross domestic product of Australia or Spain.