Belt and Road Initiative Project Financing and Hong Kong

Abstract

Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects often involve infrastructure construction which demands huge funding. The lack of funding from the host countries and international institutions has resulted in large funding gaps for those projects. This chapter discusses how Hong Kong can leverage its competitive advantage as an international financial centre to take an active role in BRI project financing. While there are high expectations from stakeholders in China, there are different views from stakeholders in Hong Kong. To fill these gaps, innovations in investment and financing model coupled with developing a BRI credit rating framework to support the growth of bond market for BRI projects are proposed.