Ronald Leung’s original, dated commentary is reproduced below. Views, invitations and product references reflect the time of publication; they are not investment advice, an offer, a guarantee of return or confirmation of current availability.
Try this. Take one gold bar and walk it past three government departments.
Customs sees goods crossing a border. The SFC sees an investment product. The HKMA is looking at a line on a bank's balance sheet.
All three are right. All three are looking at a different object. In most countries you only make that walk once. Gold sits with the central bank, and the central bank is asked to look at the whole thing.
Hong Kong does it in parts, and each part works. But nobody is asked to look at all of it at once.
And gold does more than one job. It settles trades, it holds value, and it moves across a region rather than one city.
Nobody has looked at it whole yet. Better to ask now.
Disclosure: Esperanza operates a tokenised gold business. — Let's open the statute. A new breakdown every week.