As Beijing launches its new five-year plan, President Xi Jinping has revived his goal of turning China into a financial superpower. Analysts say Hong Kong, as a global financial centre, could play a key role in yuan internationalisation, digital yuan adoption, and cryptocurrency testing.
In 2009, Beijing decided to promote the yuan for wider use in trade, investment, and other fundraising activities, a game-changer that turned Hong Kong into an offshore yuan hub. “Back then, there was no yuan trading at all as, in fact, the internationalisation of the yuan only started in 2009,” recalled Chan, who has worked for various Chinese banks. Nowadays, the yuan is one of the most used currencies in trade finance worldwide, while many mainland banks and companies have used Hong Kong as a stepping stone to raise funds to develop their businesses internationally.
As Beijing kicks off its next five-year plan this year and refloats President Xi Jinping’s goal of building the country into a “financial superpower”, analysts said Hong Kong could play a critical and unique role. First declared at a high-level financial policy conference in 2023, Xi elaborated further on his vision in a 2024 speech. Those remarks were recently republished by Qiushi, the ruling Communist Party’s leading theoretical journal, indicating the ambitious target has not been forgotten in the run-up to this year’s “two sessions”.
Long established as a global financial centre thanks to its common-law system, strong financial infrastructure and abundant talent, the city was also poised to help ramp up digital yuan adoption, connect global investors with mainland listing candidates and serve as a testing ground for cryptocurrency assets. “Hong Kong can contribute to the country’s ambition to be a financial superpower by being the best international financial centre that we can be,” said Robert Lee Wai-wang, a lawmaker and the chairman of Hong Kong-based Grand Finance Group.