Hong Kong to retain international financial hub crown for ‘years, decades’, MSCI CEO says

Name: HKEX chief executive Charles Li Xiaojia unveils three-year plan
Uploaded: 2020-06-24T23:00:23.000Z
Duration: 2 min 17 s
Description: HKEX chief executive Charles Li Xiaojia unveils three-year plan

Demise, lowered relevance of Hong Kong have been forecast for years, but the city always reinvents itself, Henry Fernandez tells virtual conference

MSCI’s decision to move futures contracts to Hong Kong last month has sent HKEX shares to record high

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Fernandez says Hong Kong offers a large customer base of international, regional and Chinese investors, as well as a deep pool of liquidity. Photo: Fung Chang

Chad Bray

Published: 7:00am, 25 Jun 2020Updated: 7:06am, 25 Jun 2020

Hong Kong will retain its status as an international financial centre despite being buffeted by months of anti-government protests and concerns among some international investors about a controversial national security law for the city, according to the top executive at index provider MSCI.

Speaking at the Bloomberg Invest Global conference on Wednesday, chief executive Henry Fernandez dismissed talk of Hong Kong losing its crown to Singapore or other cities in Asia, and said he believed “strongly” in the city as an international financial centre.

“I’ve been going to Hong Kong, China and the rest of Asia for over 40 years. I have heard this story before many times, as to the demise and the relevance of Hong Kong,” Fernandez said during the virtual conference. “It hasn’t happened. Every time, Hong Kong comes back stronger, more resilient and reinvents itself.”

The National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, said in May that it would draft a national security law for Hong Kong following months of street protests, prompting concerns the legislation could be used to restrict speech and assembly in the city. The move to sidestep the city’s legislature came after years of lawmakers failing to pass the legislation since Hong Kong’s handover from British control in 1997.

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HKEX chief executive Charles Li Xiaojia unveils three-year plan

It has sparked an outcry from western governments, with the United States declaring that the city no longer maintained a “high degree of autonomy” and threatening to revoke its special trade and travel status.

Fernandez’s comments also came almost a month after Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) said it would begin offering 37 futures and options contracts tied to MSCI’s Asia and emerging-markets focused indices, supplanting the index provider’s long-time partner, Singapore Exchange (SGX).