By CGTN’s Cyrus Ip

From the Asian financial crisis to the stock connect program, Hong Kong has experienced ups and downs in the market. Can the city keep its position as a regional and international financial hub? CGTN interviewed three media veterans in Hong Kong to find out how they feel. 

Tom Mitchell, Bureau Chief of Financial Times Beijing, had worked as a deputy business editor at the South China Morning Post for three years. He noted that the big benefit that Hong Kong got from the mainland’s economic development was the mainland companies that were coming to list in Hong Kong. 

“The biggest contribution is really the access to China’s financial markets through Hong Kong,” said Mitchell. “The red chips, and later the H-shares, and that was really the only way if you want to expose to Chinese stocks, that you could buy was through Hong Kong listed H-shares. Since then, we’ve seen the opening of the Shanghai connect both for shares and now bonds. And Hong Kong as a corridor which you can buy equities and bonds might be the biggest advantage that Hong Kong has got from its position.”

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The city has survived several financial crises, but the greediness of day traders and retail investors hasn't changed.  

“Retail investors are greedy, they always want to use a small amount of money to earn a big profit, that’s the one thing that has never changed, no matter what crisis they are facing. Retail investors had its nature to get risky return, but they had no risk control,” said Alaric Chu, Executive Program Director (Finance) of Metro Broadcast Corporation. 

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In the past 20 years, Hong Kong walked through the Asian financial crisis, the dot-com bubble, and the financial turmoil in 2008. Once again recently, Hong Kong had A-shares market bloomed and collapsed in 2015. 

However, opportunities still lied within reach for Hong Kong. Mark O’Neill, columnist and author, suggested that innovation would be key and intensified competitions seemed inevitable.

“Hong Kong has many competitors. Singapore, Shanghai, Tokyo. And in the next 20 years, this competition will increase, one day the RMB will become convertible, will Hong Kong still have the place it has now when RMB is fully convertible? So I think Hong Kong is in a strong position, but to retain this position that it has now, she needs to have new products, new services. Watch what other cities are doing, and to be ahead of them, and develop new things to be ahead of them.” 

While the Belt and Road Initiative and Great Bay Area provided a promising future for Hong Kong, the economy is still dominated by finance and real estate, with technology and innovation lagging behind.