Hong Kong is positioning itself as the offshore vault and trading hub for China’s yuan ambitions. An SCMP opinion piece argues Beijing is building a gold-backed route to yuan internationalisation, with ‘gold convertibility’ making the yuan less risky for trade partners such as Brics nations and Middle East oil exporters.
The city is targeting 2,000 tonnes of gold storage capacity by 2028 — a tenfold increase — and its exchange plans a yuan-denominated gold futures contract early next year.
China has been the world’s top gold producer since 2007, yet its central-bank gold is still under 10% of reserves, versus 65–75% for the US, Germany, France and Italy. The freezing of Russian assets after 2022, the piece says, was Beijing’s wake-up call.
The column is by SCMP editor-in-chief Chow Chung-yan.
