HK to launch gold trading pilot courses this year to ease talent shortage: Christopher Hui

The government plans to launch gold trading pilot courses with the Financial Services Development Council within this year to strengthen local talent development and address labor shortage, said Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui Ching-yu.

Hui mentioned that the central gold clearing and settlement system began trial operation in July and is targeted for launch in the first quarter of 2027, which will be linked to the real-time gross settlement to enable delivery versus payment, reducing settlement risk.

He said the first phase of physical gold connectivity with the Shanghai Gold Exchange has been launched, and that the Hong Kong Precious Metals Central Clearing has applied to become an international member of the exchange, allowing market participants to access both markets and facilitating the flow of physical gold between the two systems. 

The HAU price code, developed with Bloomberg, launched in July to provide a Hong Kong reference price during Asian trading hours. Meanwhile, the government will work with Airport Authority Hong Kong and financial institutions to expand storage capacity to 2,000 tones within three years to build a regional gold hub, with an eventual target of more than 2,000 tones.

He further noted that more new policies will be rolled out to support Hong Kong’s gold ecosystem, such as establishing a dedicated hotline to assist domestic and overseas gold traders and setting up a preparatory group to promote the industry’s self-establishment and operation of a gold industry association.

The government is also studying tax concessions for qualified institutions for gold trading and settlement in Hong Kong, and will optimize the tax concession regime for funds and single-family offices. Hui proposed to expand the scope of qualifying investments to include precious metals.

In addition, after the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority improved guidelines in July, the number of gold exchange-traded funds available for MPF investment has increased to five, and a growing number of physical gold ETFs and tokenized gold products have launched in the market.
 

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