A government under Leung Chun-ying would consider setting up a council to promote the city's financial industries and other financial products overseas, the chief executive candidate said yesterday.
'The Monetary Authority has been acting as a regulator in ensuring the stability of financial and currency markets in Hong Kong, but it has stopped short of assuming a role as the market facilitator in promoting the city's financial industry overseas,' Leung (pictured) said in his fifth policy proposal, on economic development.
The make-up and functions of the council would be based on the Trade Development Council and Tourism Board, with government officials and industry representatives.
But his proposal was dismissed as unworkable by a former chief of the Monetary Authority, Joseph Yam Chi-kwong, who is a senior adviser to the campaign of Henry Tang Ying-yen, Leung's chief rival.
The council was a bad idea, Yam said, because it might create 'risks' that would upset market stability.
Yam, who had headed the Monetary Authority from 1993 to 2009, said the existing system had worked well, and Leung's proposal would be impractical.
Financial development was linked inseparably with currency policy, he said. 'It might bring risks to the city's financial development if we set up a new council without considering the stability of the financial and currency markets.'
