Coronavirus: Hong Kong expands quarantine waivers for executives in more industries to keep financial hub’s business vibes abuzz
- Each of the four financial regulators can exempt four vaccinated, senior executives of each company from quarantine when they visit the city
- The four bodies are the SFC, the HKMA, the Insurance Authority (IA) and the HKEX
Hong Kong’s government is expanding the scope of its quarantine exemptions, potentially enabling thousands of senior executives to resume travelling, as the absence of new local Covid-19 cases bolstered confidence to sustain deal making, relationships and businesses in Asia’s financial hub.
Each of the four regulatory bodies responsible for the city’s financial services will be able to exempt four vaccinated, senior executives of each company from three weeks of quarantine when they visit the city, according to the spokeswoman for the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau (FSTB).
“Hong Kong has a lot of financial firms and listed companies which have the need to travel around the world to maintain their business operations,” according to the spokeswoman. “This is important to maintain the city as an international financial centre.”
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Together, the four regulatory bodies can potentially exempt up to thousands of executives to travel to Hong Kong per month, subject to the completion of approved vaccination, and a litany of travel restrictions and disclosure requirements including detailed itineraries and consent to avoid public venues. However, the number of travellers would be limited to four per company, each specific to the regulated line of business, such as insurance or commercial banking.
Senior executives who want to enter Hong Kong from high-risk locales including Taiwan, the United States and the United Kingdom will still need to be quarantined, but for shorter periods of time than the requisite 21 days at hotels for all other visitors who are not vaccinated. The exemption allowed them to attend business meeting during the self-quarantine period.
In each case, travel would be limited to a single trip each month by two returning Hong Kong-based executives and two visiting executives, the spokeswoman said. Previously only two executives or directors were allowed to travel from the mainland each month.
“In principle, we welcome more interflow of people for business subject to public health preconditions, like vaccinations or negative test results. On the other hand, we support opening up be at a gradual and measured pace to prevent the import of cases,” said Mike Wong Ming-wai, CEO of the Chamber of Hong Kong Listed Companies.
About 21 per cent of the city’s 7.5 million population have received at least one jab, lagging behind the 50 per cent in the US and 58 per cent of the UK’s population. About 36 per cent of Singapore’s population has received at least one jab, according to the city state’s Ministry of Health.