Hong Kong to keep lobbying Beijing for IPO push, Greater Bay Area benefits, Paul Chan says
Investor confidence has returned to city, finance minister says during trip to US
Hong Kong will continue to lobby Beijing to encourage more mainland Chinese companies to list in the city and improve the flow of people, data and capital within the Greater Bay Area, the finance chief has said.
“We continue to lobby the central government for policies which are favourable to Hong Kong,” Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po told the Post during his three-day visit to New York, following a trip to Peru for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) meeting. “And I’ll give you some examples, about allowing mainlanders to come to invest in the market, about relaxing the exemption limit on visitors from the mainland to Hong Kong.
“But in formulating our proposal to central authorities, we need to consider our benefit, as well as the benefit to our counterparts.”
The bay area refers to Beijing’s plan to integrate Hong Kong, Macau and nine southern mainland cities into an economic powerhouse.
Chan said Hong Kong also hoped to strengthen the city’s role as an intermediary between the mainland and the rest of the world.
The city’s relationship with Beijing is governed by the “one country, two systems” formula that was adopted upon the handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
