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No questions on Hong Kong national security from US firms but financial hub status top of mind, Paul Chan says on California trip
- Finance chief wraps up US trip, expressing confidence that ‘candid exchanges’ with businesses helped improve ‘mutual understanding’
- He says top concerns among officials and executives he met included overall business environment, impact of high interest rates and stock market
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Natalie Wongin Berkeley
Hong Kong finance minister Paul Chan Mo-po said American businesses raised no questions about national security during his visit to California this week, but asked instead about the city’s stability as a financial hub.
He spent four days in San Francisco and Berkeley as part of the first joint delegation to the United States with Guangdong and Macau officials to promote the Greater Bay Area.
In an interview with the Post, he said the visit was significant for effectively promoting the region of 87 million that Beijing planned to turn into a tech powerhouse to rival California’s Silicon Valley by 2035.
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While Chan was meeting business chiefs and attending high-level meetings with officials in the United States, national security dominated headlines in Hong Kong with the first arrests under the new domestic security law and the conviction of 14 opposition figures for subversion.
But, asked whether the US businesspeople and politicians he met had expressed concern, Chan said “no one was concerned about national security” and their focus was very much on “business-related issues”.
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“In fact, the concern and interests of the business sector here are about the stability of Hong Kong, the overall business environment, the impact of high interest rates on Hong Kong, also the performance of the stock market and property market,” he said.
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