Why Hong Kong is China's undisputed hub for global finance, at Shanghai's expense
When Yan Jun was looking around last year for a stock market to raise capital for his Beijing-based traffic-control software company, the engineer and chairman thought he was spoiled for choice.
He could sell shares of his 10-year-old company AICT on one of the three mainland exchanges – Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen – that together make up the world's second-biggest capital market, with a combined value of US$10 trillion, according to Bloomberg data.
Or he could raise capital offshore by selling shares in
Hong Kong's nearly US$6.2 trillion market , the world's fourth-largest.
New York – a welcoming possibility at first – lost its appeal early this year when US President Donald Trump unleashed a new wave of trade hostilities and animosity towards Chinese companies.
In the end, the choice was clear: Hong Kong won because of its access to 'international capital and strong connectivity to global markets', Yan said. The city, where he earned his doctorate in business administration, would also be the launching pad for his business abroad, he added.
AICT's products are used in sensing robots, intelligent traffic systems and autonomous driving. Photo: Handout
Yan is not alone. Since the summer of 2024, a series of mainland companies have made similar calculations and turned to Hong Kong's stock exchange for capital infusions.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
37 minutes ago
- South China Morning Post
Get elderly housing right and Hong Kong's silver economy can take off
Hong Kong's Deputy Chief Secretary Warner Cheuk Wing-hing has announced dozens of measures to promote the 'silver economy' and address the needs of the city's ageing population. These cover five main areas : boosting consumption, developing tailor-made products, promoting quality assurance of 'silver' products, strengthening financial and insurance protection, and encouraging older residents to re-enter the job market. These are all good intentions, but it also begs the question: where is the infrastructure needed to support the measures? An important part of this is suitable housing and a community that encourages ageing Hongkongers to live well and be productive for as long as they would like to be. In 2015, the Housing Society built The Tanner Hill development for aged living, offering world-class facilities. The flats are well-designed, with clever use of compact space, and come with safety measures like grab bars and anti-slip bathroom mats, plus access to user-supported cooking facilities. The premises include clinics offering both Western and Chinese medicines, a library, restaurant, swimming pool, gym and access to services like banking, plus seats in the common lifts. It would be a no-brainer to house outlets there to offer 'silver products' to this exclusive community. But what about those of less modest means? Perhaps we can consider a hybrid living model. Hong Kong could design such a housing estate in three parts. One section of flats could be fitted out with facilities aimed at independent living for senior residents. This would cater to those who want their privacy while maintaining access to medical support, including silver products and services as needed. NGOs could help.
South China Morning Post
6 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Vietnam ramping up expansion of South China Sea outposts: Chinese think tank
Vietnam has continued to expand land reclamation on its occupied features in the South China Sea , with military-related construction of new ports and airstrips, according to a Chinese think tank. Advertisement Citing satellite images, the Beijing-based South China Sea Probing Initiative (SCSPI) said on Friday that Vietnam had reclaimed nearly 0.78 sq km (0.3 square miles) of land in the past six months on 11 features in the contested Spratly Islands, which are known as the Nansha Islands in China. In total, Vietnam had reclaimed over 8.5 sq km of new land on these features since October 2021, the think tank added in an English-language social media post. China and Vietnam have rival territorial claims in the South China Sea, particularly over the Spratly and Paracel islands. The reclamation focused not only on expanding the land area but also the construction of military-related facilities, such as harbour basins, wharves and runways , the think tank said in a separate post on Chinese social media. Advertisement These include an airstrip on the Spratlys' Barque Canada Reef that is expected to be about 3,000 metres (9,843 feet) long when completed. Sandbars that could accommodate runways had also been built on four other Spratly features: Pearson Reef, Tennent Reef, Ladd Reef and South Reef, the SCSPI said. South Reef is located just 50km (31 miles) north of the China-controlled Subi Reef.
South China Morning Post
6 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Why China's leaders seek a culture that is both modern and distinctly Chinese
Renowned historian Wang Gungwu's Roads to Chinese Modernity: Civilisation and National Culture traces China's transformation from an ancient civilisation into a modern nation-state shaped by revolution, reform and global engagement. Drawing on decades of scholarship and his unique perspective as an overseas Chinese intellectual, Wang reflects in this excerpt on Deng Xiaoping's legacy and the enduring challenge facing China's leaders today: how to build a modern national culture that embraces global ideas while remaining recognisably and distinctively Chinese. The genius of Deng Xiaoping in 1978 was to see that China could not go down the road of revolution again. The word he used was 'reform'. By this, he was asking the Communist Party to recognise that the revolution had been successful in 1949; the time had come to consolidate what had been achieved by learning from the lessons and mistakes of the past. When Deng called for 'reform and opening up', there was a national sigh of relief. The idea of no more revolutions was something so welcomed by most people that it may be described as the secret of China's success in the decades that followed. What is still unclear, however, is whether the new generation of leaders are free of the idea that Chinese culture is holistic. When I talk about the quest for a new cultural identity, I am not certain whether the Chinese people have really moved away from the heritage of culture as a holistic unity. Why do I stress this? Because it is a new challenge to build a new culture that can stand by itself in the world today. Globalisation has made the world much smaller. New ideas are transmitted very rapidly. They include some of the most advanced ideas in science and technology, which all the Chinese admire and are willing to learn without any hesitation whatsoever. For many, this has demonstrated to them that globalisation has enabled the world to be one. There is a global process going on and one day, some kind of global culture that all human beings could subscribe to and believe in might be created. I am not yet sure if that is part of the popular vision among the Chinese today. There are many signs which suggest that the Chinese deeply hanker for the kind of civilisation they once had, of which they were so proud. I think that old cultural identity is truly gone. But maybe some valuable parts of it could be recovered and given new life by incorporating new ideas that are coming from elsewhere. With new mixtures or compositions, China could build something that will be distinctively, if not uniquely, Chinese.
