Hong Kong struggles to persuade CEOs it is open for business

“We’re back!” Hong Kong’s financial secretary Paul Chan told a conference intended to show the Chinese city was open for business following the lifting of coronavirus measures that undermined its status as a hub for international finance.

But Chan himself was not back at all. After catching Covid-19 on a work trip, he was stranded in the Middle East owing to Hong Kong’s remaining pandemic restrictions and appeared at the fintech gathering on Monday via a video link.

The incident encapsulated the challenge Hong Kong faces in persuading global investors to return to a territory that imposed weeks-long quarantines and unpredictable flight bans through much of the pandemic.

The fintech conference is part of a week of gatherings — including a global forum for financial institution chief executives and the return of the celebrated rugby Sevens tournament — that the government hopes will announce Hong Kong’s re-engagement with the business world.

But at least three senior executives have pulled out of the Global Financial Leaders’ Investment Summit that opens on Wednesday, with two more missing from its schedule.

Blackstone said its president Jonathan Gray could no longer attend because of a coronavirus infection and would be replaced by chief financial officer Michael Chae. Jane Fraser, chief executive of Citigroup, also pulled out after contracting Covid, to be replaced by wealth management head Anand Selva.

CS Venkatakrishnan, Barclays chief executive, “made changes to his travel plans”, while Timothy Armour, chair of US fund manager Capital Group, and Valérie Baudson, chief executive of Amundi, one of Europe’s biggest asset managers, were also missing from a revised agenda for Wednesday. Capital Group and Amundi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some executives say Hong Kong’s remaining coronavirus rules, which include pre-departure and on-arrival Covid tests, risk undermining the city’s return to the world stage.

Johannes Hack, president of Hong Kong’s German Chamber of Commerce and a bank executive, said measures such as on-arrival tests should be scrapped.

“I can’t ask my boss to come to Hong Kong as long as he has to worry about testing positive and having his trip disrupted,” Hack said. “If I say, ‘Come for two days but potentially be stuck for a week’, [they are] going to say no.”