ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS IN ASIA
Volume 13
THE FINANCIAL MARKETS OF HONG KONG
First published in 1991 by Routledge
This edition first published in 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
1991 Andrew F. Freris
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-138-48274-6 (Set)
ISBN: 978-0-429-42825-8 (Set) (ebk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-61759-9 (Volume 13) (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-46157-6 (Volume 13) (ebk)
Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.
Disclaimer
The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.
First published 1991
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
a division of Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc.
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
1991 Andrew F. Freris
Typeset by Columns Design and Production Services Limited
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Biddies Ltd, Guildford and Kings Lynn
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Freris, Andrew
The financial markets of Hong Kong.
1. Hong Kong. Financial institutions
I. Title 332.1095125
ISBN 0415020794
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Freris, Andrew F., 1945
The financial markets of Hong Kong/Andrew F. Freris.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0415020794
1. Financial institutionsHong Kong. I. Title.
HG187.H85F74 1991
332.1095125dc20
9035380
CIP
To my wife, Anabella
A great deal of the research undertaken in the writing of this book was supported by grants from the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong during 19869. In particular draw freely from the data collected and results obtained from these funded projects. A vote of thanks is therefore due to the research assistants involved, Henry K.N. Lee (now Lecturer in the Department), Louis Chan, Connie G. Ng and Chris W.K. Chow.
The Director of the Polytechnic until 1989, Dr D.J. Johns, provided constant support whilst the book was being written.
Colleagues in the Department were liberal with their time and advice. It would be convenient to claim that whatevern errors or misinterpretations remain in this book are their fault. This would be worse than unfair, it would be untrue. My thanks to Kenneth K.K. Chow, Daniel K.P. Chan and K.Y. Cheung for all their help. Last but not least thanks are due to Vincent H.C. Cheng of Hongkong Bank and to T.C. Thompson of Wardley Investment Services. They provided invaluable material and moral help at various stages. So did P. Sowden of Routledge who was willing to listen, and perhaps believe, my excuses over delays. The permission of HSI Services Ltd to reproduce the data in , is gratefully acknowledged.
To my speedy, patient and always cheerful secretary and PA Indy K.Y. Chan Ching another vote of thanks for producing tangible evidence from my tangled manuscript.
Finally, and as always, none of this would have been possible without the support and help of my wife Anabella.
Andrew F. Freris
Head, Department of Economics and Finance
City Polytechnic of Hong Kong
P.S. Since the completion of the writing of this book I have taken up the post of senior economist with GT Management (Asia) Ltd. The views expressed herein are strictly my own.
Hong Kongs economic performance has elicited a whole list of superlatives. Coupled with its spectacular rise from a sleepy colonial port to a world commercial centre is the fact that this bastion of capitalist free enterprise will be handed back to the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) in 1997. What perhaps characterizes Hong Kong most is the pace of change, the shortness of any planning horizon and the speed by which the events are frequently overtaken by Hong Kong rather than the other way around.
To write a book about Hong Kongs financial markets and to try to keep it up to date would be a futile enterprise. Therefore, what this book aspires to do is not to produce an up-to-date essay in the sense of incorporating all the more recent statistics or events just before going to press, but to present a picture which draws together the current understanding and analysis of the markets behaviour. This does mean that commentary or description of institutions, events and controversies are often given second place to the quantification, empirical investigation and analytical treatment of what appear to be long-term trends or paths of development. In a similar vein, trying to predict the course of future events or the shape and behaviour of these markets by 1997 and beyond is also given second place to a comprehensive survey of all serious and quantitative investigations of these markets over the last 10 years or so. The perceived benefit of this approach is that it allows trends to be delineated which are not submerged under the welter of current developments, some of which may turn out to be only of temporary importance. In a broad sense this book is about applied financial economics with examples drawn from Hong Kongs experience.
Despite its reputation for rapid change and volatility, judicious application of economic analysis helps to map out a relatively coherent picture of the way in which Hong Kongs financial markets developed. This is also assisted by the emergence of a small group of scholars and observers of Hong Kongs economy who have taken the longer view and have also taken the time and trouble to apply the tools of financial analysis and econometrics in order to explain and understand rather than just describe Hong Kongs financial dynamics. Predictably, many of their findings were not dissimilar to those encountered in other developed or developing countries. In this sense Hong Kong is not unique and this bodes well for its future. A truly unique experience in financial development may well have contained the seeds of its own destruction in dealing with the vagaries of the international market place and the stresses imposed by the 1997 handover. But even so, given Hong Kongs dependence on international trade, it would have been unlikely that its financial markets would have developed along lines very different from those of its customers and competitors.
