Hong Kong launches $3.8bn fund to lure again worldwide enterprise

Hong Kong has launched a HK$30bn (US$3.8bn) fund alongside a package deal of measures to draw worldwide companies again to town after strict coronavirus controls and a safety crackdown crippled its standing as a world monetary hub.

Chief government John Lee on Wednesday launched visa and tax concessions for expert international and mainland Chinese language employees in his first coverage handle, together with a transfer to make it cheaper for long-term expatriates to purchase homes.

Lee is in search of to reverse the results of presidency insurance policies that sparked an exodus of residents, lowering the workforce by a minimum of 140,000 in a metropolis of seven.5mn. As safety secretary, Lee oversaw a crackdown that worn out dozens of civil society teams and stuffed town’s jails with these charged after pro-democracy protests in 2019.

“The federal government will proactively trawl the world for expertise,” Lee mentioned. “Now we have to current the true image of Hong Kong to the world and promote our strengths.”

His handle disillusioned markets, nonetheless, by failing to disclose any additional softening of town’s Covid-19 guidelines, which prohibit vacationers from visiting bars and eating places throughout their first three days within the metropolis and forestall quarantine-free journey to the mainland. The benchmark Dangle Seng index fell virtually 2.4 per cent.

Lee mentioned town’s worldwide commerce workplaces abroad can be charged with encouraging Hong Kongers who had left town to return, a pitch that would show controversial as some authorities critics overseas have been prosecuted of their absence.

Expats who buy a residential property in Hong Kong after which keep within the metropolis lengthy sufficient to change into everlasting residents, which is feasible for some migrants after seven years, can achieve a refund on additional stamp responsibility paid on their first house.

The federal government may also introduce a two-year “high expertise” cross permitting these with an annual wage of greater than HK$2.5mn or those that have graduated from the world’s high 100 universities to work within the metropolis with out a earlier job provide.

Lee mentioned a fund would even be set as much as encourage strategic enterprises to relocate to Hong Kong. Companies centered on healthtech, synthetic intelligence, knowledge science, fintech and superior manufacturing can be prioritised, he mentioned.

Lee additionally introduced a handful of measures meant to bolster exercise on Hong Kong’s inventory market, the place the variety of new listings has slowed to a trickle this 12 months, partially as a result of a regulatory crackdown on Chinese language tech teams.

He mentioned change operator Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing would revise itemizing guidelines for its predominant board to facilitate fairness fundraising by superior tech corporations in addition to revitalise its moribund Progress Enterprise Market so as to cater to the wants of small companies and start-ups.

Hong Kong may also exempt some market makers from a stamp responsibility levied on transactions within the metropolis.

Nevertheless, native brokers had been sceptical the measures would have an enduring influence on market liquidity or the move of latest listings, pointing to the 30 per cent fall in third-quarter income reported on Wednesday by HKEX amid sluggish buying and selling exercise.

“Will these measures work? And in the event that they do, ask your self — for the way lengthy?” mentioned Louis Tse, managing director at Hong Kong-based Rich Securities. “In two years’ time, chances are you’ll find yourself in the identical place you began in.”