Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan: "The construction work of the 'commodity trading ecosystem' is steadily progressing."

Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan said in his blog that the integration of supply chains and reshaping of trade patterns will bring new development opportunities for Hong Kong's trade, shipping, finance, and professional services. For example, bulk commodities, especially non-ferrous metals, play a crucial role in the industrial and economic development of countries around the world, and also support half of the global shipping volume. He mentioned that last year's Policy Address proposed to build a "bulk commodity trading ecosystem," and related work is progressing steadily. Earlier this year, Hong Kong successfully joined the global warehouse and delivery network of the London Metal Exchange, with LME-recognized warehouses set up in Hong Kong to improve the efficiency of non-ferrous metal allocation, reduce logistics time and costs, and stabilize the supply of key metal resources in the region. On the other hand, the trading and delivery activities of bulk commodities in Hong Kong, in addition to increasing demand for related shipping services, also drive the development of trade financing, insurance, risk management, hedging, and derivative instruments in financial services. In the long run, promoting more bulk commodity transactions denominated and settled in Renminbi will provide new momentum for the development of Hong Kong's offshore Renminbi business and make a more active contribution to the prudent promotion of Renminbi internationalization. Since Hong Kong became a licensed delivery location for the London Metal Exchange in January this year, all eight approved warehouses have been fully operational in just 7 months; by early August, there were over 8,000 tons of LME registered warrants supporting LME contract deliveries.