The former chairman of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing says the city's currency peg to the US dollar should stay and any evaluation of the system should be done internally, not in public.
Ronald Arculli, now Executive Council convenor, is the latest to speak out over a controversial academic paper released last week by Joseph Yam Chi-kwong in which the former central banker - a long-time defender of the peg - suggested it might be time to consider a change.
Arculli said there had been internal and private reviews of the system since its implementation in 1983.
'If the government and the Monetary Authority are to do the review regularly ... they should do it internally. It would not be necessary for them to announce their findings and to reconfirm the peg is to be continued [after each review], or else the markets would be destabilised,' he said.
The incoming government should also address the small-house policy, which grants male indigenous villagers the right to build a three-storey, 2,100 sq ft house once they reach the age of 18, he said.
Secretary for Development Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor sparked fierce debate after telling the South China Morning Post last week that the policy should be ended, possibly by 2029.