The Securities and Futures Commission and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority jointly announced a road map for developing Hong Kong’s fixed income and currency markets in a bid to enhance the city’s strategic position as a global international financial center by fostering demand, liquidity and innovation in the FIC market.
Among the 10 proposed initiatives, the road map seeks to reinforce Hong Kong's existing foundations by further attracting issuers to make use of Hong Kong as their fundraising hub, and providing issuers and investors with risk and liquidity management tools. It also places equal emphasis on boosting offshore renminbi usage and liquidity, as well as developing next-generation infrastructure to facilitate market innovation.
Formulated in close consultation with industry stakeholders, the road map will guide the policy-making and implementation of the SFC and the HKMA in coming years to support the sustainable and diversified growth of Hong Kong's capital markets.
“The road map is poised to guide our market evolution that will benefit issuers, investors and intermediaries alike for years to come,” SFC Chairman Kelvin Wong Tin-yau said.
Julia Leung Fung-yee, CEO of SFC, added: “Strengthening Hong Kong's FIC markets is essential to advancing its position as an investment and fundraising hub. The SFC will focus on encouraging more issuers from diverse countries to issue renminbi-denominated fixed-income products, as well as continuously enhance liquidity in the secondary market for offshore renminbi-denominated fixed-income products, and improve risk management mechanisms.”
“We will continue to build on our strengths, adapt to market changes and innovate, and capitalize on emerging trends, including renminbi internationalization and the digitalization of the FIC market,” HKMA Chief Executive Eddie Yue Wai-man noted.
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Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu unveiled the vision to develop the special administrative region’s FIC market in the Policy Address 2025. The SFC and the HKMA formed the FIC task force to conduct extensive engagement with various industry stakeholders to formulate the market development road map.
“This road map represents a shared commitment between the public and private sectors to reinforce Hong Kong's role as a premier FIC hub, ensuring that our markets remain competitive, inclusive, and globally connected,” Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said in his keynote speech at the Hong Kong Fixed Income and Currency Forum 2025 on Thursday.
Before the promulgation of the roadmap in Thursday afternoon, the two financial regulators organized the forum on Thursday morning that brought together senior officials of Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland, regulators and leaders from major financial institutions to exchange insights on opportunities, challenges and emerging trends in the global FIC market landscape.
The finance chief argued Hong Kong's FIC market offers a unique value preposition, such as the free flow of capital and information, a relatively stable exchange rate pegged to the US dollar, a freely-convertible Hong Kong dollar, and mutual market access arrangements with the Chinese mainland that give global issuers and investors’ access to deep liquidity in an efficient, familiar and trusted environment.
The People's Bank of China Deputy Governor Zou Lan, who delivered a keynote speech at the Thursday forum, said the PBOC strives to provide more high-credit-rating renminbi assets, such as offshore renminbi government bonds, in the Hong Kong market to enrich the market's renminbi product offerings, as well as accelerate the listing of renminbi-denominated government bond futures in Hong Kong.
“The swap connect vendor team will be expanded and the vendor management mechanism will be optimized. The daily net limit for swap connect transactions will be increased from 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) to 45 billion yuan,” Zou said.
Hua Zhong, deputy director-general of the National Development and Reform Commission’s Department of Foreign Capital and Overseas Investment, said, “mainland and Hong Kong financial regulators could consolidate bond market resources bilaterally and deepen bilateral regulatory collaboration, for building this coordinated and synergistic system to facilitate bond issuances by mainland enterprises in a compliant way.”
