Hong Kong Aims to Establish Itself as an International Gold Trading Hub

The Hong Kong government has unveiled plans to transform the city into a global center for gold trading and storage. In his latest policy address, Chief Executive John Lee emphasized the importance of consolidating Hong Kong’s status as a leading international financial, shipping, and trade hub. 

Joshua Rotbart, the founder of J. Rotbart & Co, the one-stop precious metals services provider, highlights Hong Kong’s existing strengths as a major gold import and export hub, though he notes the city has so far been more of a transitional rather than a long-term storage location. He suggests that Hong Kong can learn from Singapore’s model by establishing a central storage facility to streamline gold trading and logistics. He has observed that in recent years, many businesses involved in the long-term storage of gold have had to shift their operations to Singapore due to political and pandemic-related reasons. For Hong Kong to develop into a center for long-term gold storage, the government will need to make concerted efforts to promote the industry. However, he adds that Hong Kong’s financial services sector, particularly the use of precious metals as collateral, has continued to see significant growth. 

The government is setting up a taskforce to strengthen the trading mechanism, regulatory framework, and explore integrating gold products into the Stock Connect program with mainland China. Industry experts welcome these plans, but emphasize the need for the government to actively promote the sector and develop world-class storage infrastructure to attract more global players.

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