Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) on Thursday raised its base rate charged through the overnight discount window by 50 basis points to 4.75%, hours after the U.S. Federal Reserve delivered a rate hike of the same margin, Reuters reported. The U.S. central bank raised interest rates by half a percentage point and projected at least an additional 75 basis points of increases in borrowing costs by the end of 2023, as well as a rise in unemployment and a near-stalling of economic growth. "Rate hike in the U.S.

The billionaire co-founder of Guangzhou R&F Properties Co Ltd is wanted in the United States accused of paying kickbacks to obtain permits for a construction project in San Francisco, a court in London heard on Monday, Reuters reported. Zhang Li, the chief executive of Hong Kong-listed developer R&F, is wanted on a provisional warrant issued in the Northern District of California, which accuses him of participating in a scheme to bribe public officials between 2015 and 2020. Ben Lloyd, representing U.S.

Li Lin, the founder of crypto exchange Huobi Global, is lending up to $14 million to a Hong Kong company he controls after FTX's sudden bankruptcy prevented the firm from accessing $18.1 million worth of cryptocurrencies. New Huo Technology, a digital-assets service platform that used to be called Huobi Technology, said on Monday that the amount includes $13.2 million in customers' assets and $4.9 million that belongs to one of its subsidiaries, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Hong Kong's audit regulator said on Monday that it has initiated an enquiry into the financial statements of China Evergrande Group's property services unit and its former auditor after questions were raised following the developer's probe into seized deposits worth $2 billion of the unit, Reuters reported.

Economists downgraded their forecasts for Hong Kong’s economy, predicting it could contract for the third time in four years, after data Monday showed growth is being weighed down by Covid restrictions and a slump in trade, Bloomberg News reported. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. expects gross domestic product to decline 0.5% in 2022, down from an earlier prediction of 0.3% growth. Bloomberg Economics now sees GDP shrinking 0.6% compared with a previous projection of 0.7% expansion.

Distressed Hong Kong property tycoon Pan Sutong was told by the city’s high court to go bankrupt, marking another blow to the former billionaire, Bloomberg News reported. The court ordered Pan to unwind his holding company, Silver Starlight Ltd, after he and the firm failed to pay creditors including China Citic Bank Corp HK$8 billion (US$1 billion) that was due in 2019, according to a court filing Friday. A representative for Pan said on Monday he is appealing the order.

Hong Kong's financial watchdog is tightening oversight on derivatives markets after the collapse of Archegos Capital Management, a senior official at the city's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Archegos, a U.S.-based family office of investor Bill Hwang which had $36 billion in assets, blew up last year when it was caught short on highly leveraged trades and left global banks with $10 billion in losses.

Babel Finance, the Hong Kong-based crypto lender which suspended withdrawals and redemption of crypto assets on Friday, said that it has reached an agreement with counterparties on the repayment of some debts to ease short-term liquidity, Reuters reported. Cryptocurrency valuations have plunged in recent weeks as investors dump risky assets in a rising interest rate environment. Bitcoin BTC=BTSP, which reached a record high of $69,000 in November, lost more than half its value this year.

Hong Kong dipped into its foreign-exchange reserves for the first time in three years to defend its longstanding dollar peg, acting to shore up the local currency against a surging greenback, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Chinese territory’s de facto central bank, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, on Thursday said it had acted twice to stop the local currency trading beyond the weak end of its permitted range of 7.75 to 7.85 Hong Kong dollars per U.S. dollar. The monetary authority said it had sold U.S.

Hong Kong's retail sales fell in February after 12 straight months of growth as a wave or COVID-19 infections hit the city and anti-epidemic measures weakened consumer sentiment and reduced the numbers of people going to shop, Reuters reported. Retail sales in February fell 14.6% from a year earlier to HK$25.2 billion ($3.22 billion), official data released on Thursday showed. That compares with a revised 4% increase in January and a 13.7% fall in last decline in January 2021. It is the steepest decline since July 2020, during the early months of the pandemic, when sales dropped 23.1%.