China’s plans to impose national security legislation in Hong Kong are expected to lead to the flight of capital and talent from the Asian financial hub, bankers and headhunters said.
The proposed legislation, which prompted concerns over freedoms in the territory, comes after large-scale pro-democracy demonstrations last year, which had already pushed some wealthy individuals to scout for investment options elsewhere.
“In some cases where clients had a bit of inertia and hoped things that happened last year will just go away, they will now step on the gas to reduce their wealth concentration risk here,” a senior banker at a European private bank said.
“In many cases last year, we saw our clients putting in place plan B and didn’t quite move the assets out of Hong Kong. I have already received some inquiries to activate that plan now,” said the banker, whose firm manages more than US$200 billion in assets.
The banker declined to be named as he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Hong Kong’s main stock market index yesterday fell more than 5 percent.
Globally, Hong Kong ranked second in wealth per adult after Switzerland in the middle of last year and the territory ranked 10th in terms of the number of ultra-high-net worth individuals or those with more than US$50 million in assets, according to a Credit Suisse report.
Hong Kong competes fiercely with Singapore to be considered Asia’s premier financial center. Global private banks including Credit Suisse and UBS, as well as Asian wealth managers, have their regional operations in the two hubs.
“We have had instances where clients were considering establishing a presence in Hong Kong ... but due to the pro-democracy protests in 2019, they decided to set up a presence in Singapore instead,” said Rahul Sen, London-based partner for wealth management headhunting and consulting firm Boyden.
“Existing banks in Hong Kong will also look at increasing their Greater China coverage from Singapore if the protests last longer or a feasible solution is not sought,” Sen said.
Pro-democracy activists and politicians in Hong Kong have for years opposed the idea of having to adhere to Chinese national security laws, arguing they could erode the city’s high degree of autonomy, guaranteed under the “one country, two systems” handover agreement reached in 1997.
The proposed legislation would safeguard the central Chinese government’s “overall jurisdiction” as well as Hong Kong’s “high autonomy,” a draft said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained