Hong Kong's financial sector is well positioned to benefit from the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), China's opening up and wealth creation in the region, the chairman of the Financial Services Development Council (FSDC) said on Monday.
Hong Kong's markets will play a big role in helping companies raise funds, while the liberalisation of China's financial sector would strengthen the city's role as a link between the mainland and the rest of the world, said Benjamin Hung Pi-cheng.
Additionally, the growing wealth of Asian business families could spur them to set up family offices in the city to invest and engage in succession planning, the veteran banker said.
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
"Overall, Hong Kong has a lot of growth opportunities," Hung said in his first media briefing since becoming the chairman of the government think tank in January. "What we need to do is to tell the world more about the real picture of Hong Kong."
The rise of DeepSeek has proved to be a catalyst for Hong Kong's stock market. Photo: AFP alt=The rise of DeepSeek has proved to be a catalyst for Hong Kong's stock market. Photo: AFP>
Hung, who is also the international president of Standard Chartered, said many people overseas viewed the city in a negative light mainly due to what he called misleading media reports that said Hong Kong had lost its verve and freedoms.
"FSDC members will go on roadshows to tell the real story of Hong Kong," Hung said. He said the ongoing market rally made it a good time to promote the city, as sentiment had improved substantially since China announced a stimulus package to support the economy in September, which was followed by DeepSeek's momentum-boosting breakthrough in January.
The Hang Seng Index has advanced more than 17 per cent this year after an 18 per cent gain in 2024. The Hang Seng Tech Index has advanced more than 35 per cent since Hangzhou-based DeepSeek unveiled an open-source reasoning model that was comparable with those developed by OpenAI, Anthropic and Google - but at a much lower cost.
"DeepSeek's technology breakthrough is a catalyst for international investors to change their views about the Hong Kong market," Hung said.
He said the rising daily stock market turnover - which averaged HK$300 billion (US$38.5 billion) for most of last week, more than double the average daily turnover of HK$131 billion last year, was proof that foreign investors had returned to the market.
Story Continues
Hung said the FSDC's roadshows would not only take them to the US, UK and Europe, but also to the Middle East and Asean.
"There are many companies that have been shifting their manufacturing base to other Asian markets, such as India or Vietnam, after US-China trade tensions started," he said, adding that Hong Kong could benefit from such a trend because banks can help finance these companies to set up new manufacturing bases.
"Hong Kong is also the largest offshore yuan trading centre, which would also help these companies conduct trade settlements with their Chinese partners."
Standard Chartered Bank was among the 24 lenders that were granted half of the 100 billion yuan (US$13.7 billion) trade finance facility by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority on Friday to support companies in obtaining yuan financing.
Another key focus of the FSDC is to conduct more research on ways to improve the financial markets to attract more initial public offerings and talent among others.
"While Hong Kong is already an established international financial centre, there is always room for improvement," he said.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
