Not really, but sort of, perhaps. Financial Secretary Paul Chan…
…noted that the Development Bureau had already initiated various studies on the Lantau Tomorrow Vision and that technical research would proceed to prepare for potential challenges, including hydrological considerations, should the project move forward.
The focus is now on the Northern Metropolis. This isn’t because spending a half-trillion-plus on a fairly small amount of land requiring massive connecting infrastructure didn’t make sense even when Hong Kong had huge budget surpluses and reserves. More because the extra space doesn’t even seem to be necessary, especially if you prioritize land valuations.
On a related subject, New World Development’s share price, from HK$52 in 2019 to HK$4.45 yesterday…
The latest fall followed an announcement that it would defer payments on perpetual bonds (which, not being quite as perpetual as markets would like, are now trading at around 60 cents on the dollar). (Update: more like 23 cents.)
Hong Kong retail sales decline for the 14th month in a row. A breakdown shows that consumer durable sales are down 23% year-on-year, though interestingly, alcohol sales have zoomed up by nearly 30%. Officials are renewing efforts to reverse the trend, notably by attracting more tourists.
Falling consumption might be a symptom, not the cause, of a problem. Discuss.
RFA on the replacement of Zheng Yanxiong with Zhou Ji as head of the Liaison Office…
No reason was given Friday for removing Zheng and if he was being appointed to another position.
Zheng was dispatched by Beijing to Hong Kong in 2019 to oversee the crackdown on the protests, before his appointment in 2020 as the first head of the Office for Safeguarding National Security in Hong Kong. In 2023, he was promoted to director of the Liaison Office – the position he’s now vacating.
Throughout his tenure, he aggressively promoted the enforcement of Hong Kong’s National Security Law as Beijing looked to curtail the freedoms that had set the city apart from the mainland since the 1997 handover from British control. His tenure saw tighter controls over the press, academia, and civil society — drawing widespread international criticism.
Courtesy of a tip in the comments: the Ombudsman’s archives, with reports dating back to the mid-1990s, are on Github. (Have Github’s computers slowed down as a result?)
New World would be happy if its perpetuals bonds were 60 cents on the dollar. It’s far worse than that. Bloomberg: “[New World’s] 6.15 per cent perpetual notes dropped about three cents to 23 cents on the dollar on June 2 after tumbling more than 30 cents on May 30, on pace for the lowest level since issuance.
Its 4.8 per cent perpetual securities fell 10 cents to 15.5 cents [on the dollar], also on track for a record low and the biggest daily decline since October 2022.”
New World going bust would be interesting for HK, to say the least, and bonds at these prices suggest the market is pricing this in as a distinct possibility. I suspect the government’s solution will involve more tourists and pandas.
So, more tourists* – less retail sales. More Taobao, less retail sales. More ‘integration’ with GBA…less retail sales, less F&B sales…
Seems to be a bit of a pattern here.
I don’r expect this to be raised & discussed in LEGCOn
Yeah, tourists will visit Hong Kong to buy a new refrigerator.