Home Actuality Singapore overtakes Hong Kong as Asia’s top financial hub

Singapore overtakes Hong Kong as Asia’s top financial hub

Hong Kong lost its title as Asia’s leading financial center to Singapore, in a world ranking in which New York and London retain first and second places, respectively.
Singapore climbs three places in the Global Centers Index

(GFCI), for the first half of the year, released on Thursday, ranking third.

This ‘ranking’ assesses the competitiveness of 119 financial centers around the world.

Once an Asian transport and logistics hub, Hong Kong was isolated from the world for more than two years due to anti-pandemic policies, in line with China’s zero-case strategy.

On the contrary, Singapore lifted restrictions on the entry of people and reopened its borders at the beginning of the year.

The city-state will host the Formula 1 Grand Prix next week, as well as a series of economic conferences in the coming months. The country expects to register four million visitors this year.

In a statement, the Hong Kong government noted that the Chinese region’s GFCI score had improved compared to the 2021 index.

“We will continue to gather opinions and be bold in advancing reforms aimed at consolidating and strengthening Hong Kong’s capital market and our role as an international financial center,” said the statement, which did not mention restrictions linked to the pandemic.

San Francisco, on the west coast of the United States, took fifth place in the GFCI, moving up two spots. Shanghai, in northeast China, hit by a long lockdown this year, is in sixth place, followed by Los Angeles (US West), Beijing and Shenzhen, adjacent to Hong Kong.

As of August 12, Hong Kong allows travelers to stay in quarantine for three days at a designated hotel, and then undergo four days of medical surveillance.

On Thursday, the Finance Secretary of the Chinese region, Paul Chan Mo-po, was in favor of facilitating the entry of people from abroad, to promote greater investment.

According to sources quoted by the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post, the region’s government is preparing to end the quarantine in designated places, replacing it with a week of “medical self-surveillance”, possibly at home.

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