By George Chen
The opinions expressed are the author’s own.
There’s a new problem with the “one country, two systems” policy for Hong Kong and mainland China — the appreciation of the yuan can ease inflation in mainland China but not in Hong Kong.
In Hong Kong, the former British colony that returned to Beijing’s hands in 1997, things unfortunately work the other way round.
Peter Wong, HSBC’s Asia-Pacific top boss (and widely considered the most handsome banker in Hong Kong) said at a forum in Shanghai last week that because the Hong Kong dollar is pegged to the U.S. dollar, whose value is falling almost every day, food prices in Hong Kong are set to increase as Hong Kong needs to pay more to import food products from the mainland.
Former Hong Kong central banker Joseph Yam, now a senior representative of a Beijing-backed financial academy, added that he believed the Chinese government would let the yuan rise further and relax some policy restrictions.
So, a stronger yuan is in no doubt, and food prices in Hong Kong are certain to rise.
