Macroscope | Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area can play a key role in the development of China’s bond market

As the financial sector enters a ‘new investing age’, Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong, as part of the Greater Bay Area, can pool their strengths to bring investors to China’s financial markets, especially its bond market

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Hong Kong’s iconic Star Ferry vessels sail across Victoria Harbour in front of the financial district in Central. China’s government plans to transform Hong Kong and 10 cities around the Pearl River Delta into a thriving global centre of technology, innovation and economic vibrancy. Photo: Dickson Lee

Published: 6:00am, 25 Apr 2019Updated: 6:00am, 25 Apr 2019

In the past year, the world has undergone tremendous political and economic turmoil. The ongoing US-China trade war, a protracted Brexit process and uncertainty over the direction of global monetary policy have rightly been major concerns for investors worldwide, who now more than ever see challenging and uncertain market conditions.

With artificial intelligence dominating the headlines and even stretching our imaginations, industries across the board, especially finance, are having to rethink their value proposition as technological disruption leaves no stone unturned.

However, all of this hides the fact that, in both good times and bad, there are still opportunities waiting to be uncovered. In what I view as a “new investing age”, it is imperative to look into new markets, new technologies and new investment approaches to find these opportunities.

The Greater Bay Area personifies the potential of this new era, with an ambitious plan to enhance Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong’s connectivity and leverage their complementary strengths to open up new markets, develop new technologies and pioneer new ways of investing.

For Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area initiative allows the city to capitalise on its strengths in business, professional services and finance, and its global role as a gateway to China. Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor recently echoed this in her speech at Bloomberg’s Invest Asia conference, noting that it will “provide Hong Kong with new impetus to grow her economy and improve people’s livelihood”.

This brings me to my first point as it pertains to the “new investing age” – new markets. The Greater Bay Area is one example and related to the region is China’s burgeoning bond market. We may be living in unpredictable times, but I truly believe the opening of China’s financial market – in particular, its bond market – is one of the biggest changes in the history of global capital markets.