Treasury markets group aims to lift HK's status as finance hub

Hong Kong's claim on the status of 'international financial centre' is due for a boost, when the work of the newly established Treasury Markets Association (TMA) formally gets under way next week, bankers say.

The association, which brings together treasury and market practitioners, is expected to formally begin duties and replace the Treasury Markets Forum of Hong Kong on December 8.

Association chairman Choi Yiu-kwen believed a clear corporate identity and improved resources would help the body's efforts to promote Hong Kong's treasury markets.

Mr Choi said that these efforts would be also aimed at enhancing the professionalism of market practitioners and Hong Kong's status as an international financial centre.

The association will have two kinds of members - institutional and individual - and in its initial stages the executive board of the Treasury Markets Forum will be transferred to the TMA.

Mr Choi said the association was composed of institutions and individual members rather than from a merger of different markets associations because different associations would have brought with them their own objectives.

The association would invite institutions in different sectors of the treasury markets, such as banks, foreign exchange and money market brokerage firms, investment houses and even big corporations, to take up membership.