TNAG-1724-FCO40-2437-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1988 — Page 187

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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.