8
Supplementary to Question NOA 3
༠༠༡༣༠n 8༼བཤ ཟ
in Legco on 3.2188
DR. LAM : Sir, how can the Government prevent switching
of Hong Kong dollar deposits from Hong
Hong Kong to other
offshore financial centres such as Singapore to avoid the
impact of negative interest?
FINANCIAL SECRETARY : Sir, well the short answer to that
is we can not prevent it. We are, as Dr. LAM knows, a
very open economy and we have a very open monetary system
so people could in fact shift their deposits around. But
if they do so, it may render them slightly less nimble if
they are indeed speculators.