MNI China Press Digest Nov 04:Debt, Hong Kong, National Market

Highlights from Chinese press reports on Tuesday:

• The Ministry of Finance has established a Department of Debt Management to manage central and local government debt, Yicai reports. Wen Laicheng, a professor at the Central University of Finance and Economics, said the new department can accelerate the creation of a long-term debt management mechanism aligned with high-quality development, a longstanding goal of the ministry. He added that the department will consolidate national and local government debt functions, encompassing the full spectrum of debt formulation and monitoring.
• Hong Kong plans to ease regulatory restrictions to attract more investors to the fintech sector, Chief Executive John Lee said during his speech at Hong Kong FinTech Week 2025. The city currently hosts over 1,200 fintech firms, up 10% from last year, and by 2032, the industry’s revenue is projected to exceed USD 600 billion. Lee also announced that Hong Kong will support mainland enterprises to expand overseas, allowing access to global capital and creating significant opportunities for all stakeholders, Lee added. (Source: Yicai)
• Policies outlined in the recent 15th Five-Year Plan indicate a stronger link between competition policy, the development of a unified national market and also fiscal and assessment systems, according to Liu Xu, a research fellow at the National Institute of Strategy at Tsinghua University, who has long studied market competition and antitrust policy. “To some extent, it reflects policymakers’ recognition that shortcomings in current fiscal and assessment systems may have contributed to bottlenecks impeding market unification.” Liu said, adding that China has struggled to manage such behaviour effectively through competition policy and antitrust enforcement, resulting in a range of market distortions in the past. (Source: Yicai)