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Mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan and India are poised to attract capital inflows from international investors seeking to diversify their portfolios with non-US-dollar assets while pursuing growth opportunities in the coming years, according to top Wall Street bankers. “China is one of the largest [and] most important economies in the world,” said David Solomon, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, during a panel discussion at the Global Financial Leaders’ Investment Summit in Hong Kong on Tuesday. “Global capital allocators will continue to be interested in China in almost any environment.” Solomon is among 300 leading financiers attending the three-day summit, which began on Monday. The event is the fourth edition of the annual flagship gathering organised by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Speaking on a panel titled “Markets: Trends, Opportunities and Risks”, Solomon provided an optimistic outlook for Hong Kong and mainland Chinese stocks. He said about 80 per cent of international investors had shifted to Chinese equities since last year, accounting for half of the US$6 trillion lost due to stock disposals between 2020 and 2022, a period marked by a slump in the country’s property market and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index has risen 35 per cent this year, making it one of the world’s best-performing major indices. The rally has been fuelled by Chinese tech stocks, particularly after artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek drew global attention for its low-cost, high-efficiency AI models earlier this year. The average daily turnover of the Hong Kong stock exchange reached HK$256.4 billion (US$33 billion) in the first nine months of this year, a 124 per cent increase from a year earlier. “Whether it is the DeepSeek moment or just a more normalised kind of long-term view, on a global basis, with valuations moving up, a lot of these Chinese equities look very, very attractive,” Solomon said. Morgan Stanley chairman and CEO Ted Pick, another panellist, echoed these sentiments. “Hong Kong [and] China are where it begins and ends if you believe in a market where investors will reward great companies and where dispersion matters,” he said. Pick said many Chinese companies in AI, robotics, electric vehicles (EVs) and biotechnology had successfully raised funds in Hong Kong to expand their businesses. “They are not just national champions, but global winners that are listing in Hong Kong, raising capital and effectively establishing themselves as the world’s top 500 companies immediately,” he said. Funds raised from new share sales in the city surged 220 per cent in the first nine months, with 66 firms raising US$23.27 billion on the main board of the Hong Kong stock exchange, according to data from the London Stock Exchange Group. Contemporary Amperex Technology, the world’s largest manufacturer of EV battery packs, led the way with a US$5.24 billion initial public offering in May – the largest in Hong Kong this year. The Hong Kong main board is on track to reclaim its title as the world’s largest IPO market in 2025, a crown it last held in 2019 before social unrest and the Covid-19 pandemic took a toll. Capital Group president and CEO Mike Gitlin, who also spoke on the panel, said investors continued to diversify their investments in non-US-dollar assets. That trend was expected to bolster capital inflows into Asia. Julia Leung Fung-yee, CEO of Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission and panel moderator, said regional markets saw rapid growth this year, with the MSCI Asia-Pacific Index rising 20 per cent, led by Hong Kong, mainland China, India, Japan and Southeast Asia. Pick agreed that Asia was appealing to international investors. “It is hard not to be excited about Hong Kong, China, Japan and India. They are vastly different narratives but all part of a global Asia story,” he said, noting that Japan was undergoing major corporate governance reforms, while India was advancing many infrastructure projects and deregulation measures.
