Hong Kong has joined London and New York among the world’s top financial centers, with other Asian cities including Shanghai and Seoul also moving up the ranks, a survey said yesterday.
Hong Kong was third behind New York and first-placed London in the Global Financial Centres Index, which ranks 75 financial hubs based on surveys of professionals and criteria including business environment, market access and infrastructure.
“There remains no significant difference between London and New York [in the ratings]. Respondents continue to believe that these centres work together for mutual benefit,” the twice-annual report produced by London-based think tank Z/Yen Group said.
SELECT GROUP
“Hong Kong has joined London and New York as a genuinely global financial centre. Singapore may well join this trio soon,” it said.
Singapore placed fourth in the top 10 and is followed by Tokyo, Shanghai, Chicago, Zurich, Geneva and Sydney.
“The top four centres control a large proportion of financial transactions [over 70 percent of equity trading] ... [and] are likely to remain powerful financial centres for the foreseeable future,” the report said.
Asia “continues to exhibit enhanced competitiveness” with Shanghai breaking into the top 10 and Seoul cracking the top 25, the report said.
TAIPEI
Taipei was ranked 19 in the latest survey, up two places from the No. 21 spot in the previous survey.
NEWCOMERS
Respondents said the five finance centers “likely to become more significant in the next few years” are Shenzhen, Shanghai, Singapore, Seoul and Beijing.
Offshore finance centers such as the Cayman Islands and Malta and debt-laden Dubai had lost ground since the global financial crisis, the report said.
The survey polled 1,876 finance industry professionals.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
UNPRECEDENTED PACE: Micron Technology has announced plans to expand manufacturing capabilities with the acquisition of a new chip plant in Miaoli Micron Technology Inc unveiled a newly acquired chip plant in Miaoli County yesterday, as the company expands capacity to meet growing demand for advanced DRAM chips, including high-bandwidth memory chips amid the artificial intelligence boom. The plant in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), which Micron acquired from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion, is expected to make a sizeable capacity contribution to the company from fiscal 2028, the company said in a statement. It would be an extended production site of Micron’s large-scale manufacturing hub in Taichung, the company said. As the global semiconductor industry is racing to reach US$1 trillion
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings Ltd has applied for regulatory approval to acquire the Taiwan operations of Germany-based Delivery Hero SE's Foodpanda in a deal valued at about US$600 million. Grab submitted the filing to the Fair Trade Commission on Friday last week, with the transaction subject to regulatory review and approval, the company said in a statement yesterday. Its independent governance structure would help foster a healthy and competitive market in Taiwan if the deal is approved, Grab said. Grab, which is listed on the NASDAQ, said in the filing that US-based Uber Technologies Inc holds about 13 percent of
Taiwan’s food delivery market could undergo a major shift if Singapore-based Grab Holdings Ltd completes its planned acquisition of Delivery Hero SE’s Foodpanda business in Taiwan, industry experts said. Grab on Monday last week announced it would acquire Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations for US$600 million. The deal is expected to be finalized in the second half of this year, with Grab aiming to complete user migration to its platform by the first half of next year. A duopoly between Uber Eats and Foodpanda dominates Taiwan’s delivery market, a structure that has remained intact since the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) blocked Uber Technologies Inc’s
Memory chip stocks extended their losses yesterday after Alphabet Inc’s Google publicized research that could allow more efficient use of the storage needed for artificial intelligence (AI) development. SK Hynix Inc and Samsung Electronics Co, South Korean leaders in the market, fell more than 6 percent and about 5 percent respectively in Seoul. In the US, Micron Technology Inc, Western Digital Corp and Sandisk Corp slid more than 2 percent in pre-market trading, after they all closed lower on Wednesday. Memory companies have been on a tear in recent months as the rapid development of AI infrastructure triggered a spike in chip
RSS