Excellent webinar on Hong Kong After Covid-19 held on 14 July 2023
The Kowloon Chamber of Commerce (KCC) hosted a well-attended webinar on “Hong Kong After CoVid-29’ on July 14, 2023, 2:00 PM Hong Kong Time.
Co-organized with the Confederation of Asia-Pacific Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CACCI), the one-hour webinar featured as Speaker Professor Terence Chong, Associate professor of Economics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Serving as Moderator was Mr. Ernest Yuen, KCC Chairman and Vice President of CACCI
Professor Chong made a presentation on the current economic and financial sector situation in Hong Kong, the policy measures the territory has adopted to mitigate the impact of the pandemic and to achieve sustainable economic recovery and sustainable growth, and the trade, investment, and business opportunities it currently offers, particularly to investors from other counties in the region.
In his presentation, Professor covered the following topics:
- An overview of the current state of Hong Kong economy
- The growth in the number of tourists after the opening up of Hong Kong in 2023
- The current state and future prospects of Hong Kong’s Banking and Financial sector
- Hong Kong’s housing market prospect
- The engine of growth for Hong Kong economy in the second half of 2023
Professor Chong highlighted the following points in his report:
- The Hong Kong economy posted a growth of 2.3annual growth during the first quarter of 2023, after recording negative quarterly growths in 2022 from -1.2% to -4.6%.
- The Hong Kong unemployment rate has started to decline in 2023 to reach the low levels of about 3% prior to the pandemic period, with the number of employed persons going up since the start of the current year.
- Inflation rate has also been controlled to the 2.0% level in May 2023
- China and Hong Kong exports have also been slowly improving from their 2019-2020 levels;
- Fiscal expenditures on average stay higher than prior to the pandemic period due to the government’s pandemic-related spending
The number of arriving tourists has started to go up in 2023 from almost zero in the previous three years, as Hong Kong begins to open up. - Passenger traffic at the airport continues to show a net outflow of Hong Kong residents in 2023 although the situation has slightly improved compared with the previous three years.
- The traffic of visitors from Mainland China has remained more or less steady, while passenger traffic from other countries has shown improvement during the early part of 2023
- The banking sector remained healthy, with their balance sheets showing a gradual growth during the past two years
- Bank loans to the private sector have also remained high indicating a steady demand from businesses.
- The Hong Kong 3-month Interbank rate has followed the same trend shown by the US Fed Funds Rate
- The Hong Kong housing price index as well as the Hong Kong Property Market price index have slightly dipped but stayed at a level higher than prior to 2020, indicating a continuing demand
- For the second half of 2023, business confidence is rising, as reflected in the positive annual growth in retail sales during the first half of the year.
- The Hong Kong government is currently working on the integration of the Hong Kong economy through the development of the Greater Bay Area, which covers regions that have their respective strengths in finance, technology, and manufacturing.
Only registered participants received a copy of the presentation.
The video recording of the webinar is available here.
