The Wealth Empire Crossing the Hong Kong

Chapter 621 ASEAN Foreign Trade Settlement Currency
New Year's Day, which was originally a rest day, but all employees at the headquarters of Xinjian Holdings Group worked overtime.

On this day, the headquarters of Xinjian Holdings was officially transferred from Wheelock Building, Central to Xinjian Building, Tung Wah Road.

Its influence far exceeds the relocation of the headquarters of Huihong Group, Jiayi Group, and Lane Crawford last year.

Not only because Xiangjiang has built the tallest building and put it into use, but also because Li Jianhui, the legend of Xiangjiang, left Central, the capital center of Xiangjiang.

With this transfer of headquarters, four of the top ten listed company headquarters in Xiangjiang, Donghua Road, have occupied four of them, Huihong Group ranked first, Lane Crawford ranked third, and Xinjian Bank ranked sixth , ranked ninth Watsons.

It is also because Xinjian Real Estate is not listed, otherwise the headquarters of the top ten listed companies, Donghua Road and Central will be equally divided.

Although Central is still the center of Heung Kong’s corporate headquarters, it has begun to decline, especially recently, Blue Maple Holdings Group and Fuji Consortium have announced the establishment of Blue Maple Building and Furong Building on Jing’ao Road, which highlights that the legendary color of Central is beginning to retreat. .

Perhaps in the near future, Central will only be the financial center of Hong Kong, and there will only be a large number of financial institutions gathered there, and the headquarters of those well-known companies will gradually move away.

It's a pity that Li Jianhui was not in the Xinjian Building on this day, nor was he at home to watch the public opinion of Xiangjiang. Instead, he arrived in Brunei by special plane with Su Jiangting and many senior officials of the Xinjian Department yesterday.

On New Year's Day in 1984, Brunei finally became a sovereign country, and its military diplomacy was no longer under British jurisdiction.

If it was just like this, Li Jianhui would not be able to lead high-level officials here. After all, the total population of Brunei is not as good as that of Lisboa. Apart from having good oil resources, there is no market at all.

This time I came to Brunei more because of ASEAN, the core of which is ASEAN foreign exchange.

It is quite cool for England to let go of Brunei. In addition, after Brunei becomes a sovereign state, it will automatically become a full member of ASEAN. This also brings the number of official ASEAN members to six, and three of which belong to the Commonwealth.

Although Brunei's strength is negligible, it is still a sovereign country and still has the right to speak and vote within ASEAN.

Apart from attending the handover ceremony, the top British executives came here this time. The main purpose is to hope that apart from the trade with the United States, the trade between ASEAN and other countries can be settled in pounds. At the same time, it is hoped that the major central banks of ASEAN can mainly use pounds as their foreign exchange reserves. .

With the continued depreciation of the U.S. dollar last year, and the fact that most of the trade between countries within the Commonwealth is settled in pounds, England is a bit flustered. This time, it will focus on the extremely fast-growing ASEAN.

In the afternoon of the UK-ASEAN Financial Conference, Li Jianhui, Shen Bi, Li Guobao, and Peng Kezhi attended the meeting as special guests.

Those sitting here today include the governors of the central banks of the six ASEAN countries and the ministers in charge of finance, the governor of the Bank of England, and the bosses or governors of many top-notch banks in ASEAN.

At the meeting, the governor of the Bank of England introduced the current global foreign exchange situation, focusing on the continuous depreciation of the US dollar over the past year.

When talking about the British pound, he said proudly: "Last year, due to the mutual trade between our mainland and nearly 8.5 countries and regions such as Canada, Australia, New Southwest, Malaysia, Sin Chew, Hong Kong, and South Africa, it was settled in British pounds last year. The proportion of our British pound in global foreign exchange settlement has increased by 9.6% compared with the previous year, from 18.1% before to [-]% now.

This year, we will continue to promote the pound to become the trade settlement currency of the European Community countries, and further increase the proportion of the pound.

And most importantly, compared with the 13.5% depreciation of the U.S. dollar within one year, our pound appreciated by 15.7% in U.S. dollar terms last year. Based on this calculation, even if the U.S. dollar did not depreciate, our pound also appreciated last year.

......"

Although the British pound did not have the glory at the beginning of the century in this era, it was still passable, unlike decades later, it basically completely degenerated.

Moreover, England’s influence in Southeast Asia has always been relatively strong. In addition, the U.S. dollar has not been doing well for more than a year. In addition, there are three Commonwealth countries of Malay, Brunei, and Xingzhou. Develop in favor of England.

In this regard, Li Jianhui actually doesn't care. Due to Hong Kong's own reasons, it is difficult for the Hong Kong dollar to become the main currency for international trade settlement. How ASEAN decides will have little impact on Donghua.

The only thing Li Jianhui is worried about now is whether Yinglun can withstand the suppression of the United States.

You must know that England is touching the roots of the United States, and the other party will never allow the pound to override the dollar, or even allow the pound to pose a slight threat to the dollar.

After the heads of the central bank finished their speeches, when it was Li Jianhui's turn, he said: "We, Xinjian Holdings, have always supported the diversification of foreign exchange settlement, which can also reduce our risks.

In the trade between our Xinjian Department and ASEAN, we are willing to accept British pounds for settlement. Of course, if we are willing to settle in Hong Kong dollars, we will support it even more.

We also hope that ASEAN can go further in economic cooperation, discuss currency integration, and promote the development of ASEAN economic integration. "

The major central banks don’t know what the central banks think. The governor of the Bank of England can’t wait to sew Li Jianhui’s mouth shut with glue. If ASEAN really wants to play currency integration, it will be more harm than good for England.

Shen Bi's attitude was much clearer, expressing that HSBC is willing to provide assistance to ASEAN countries in the settlement of foreign trade in sterling as much as possible, and contribute to the economic development of ASEAN.

Peng Kezhi, the president of the ASEAN Development Bank, said: "ASEAN economic ties are getting closer and closer. I think it is necessary to issue a unified currency, which can make ASEAN's economic development more rapid and convenient."

After that, Li Guobao also made a speech, but he didn't talk too much. In fact, no matter Li Jianhui, Li Guobao, or Peng Kezhi, they all knew that there was no possibility of ASEAN's unified currency in the short term.

The reason why it was brought up at the meeting today was just to add a little embarrassment to England. Xinjian Bank has already mentioned N times to become a Hong Kong dollar banknote issuing bank, but it has always been rejected.

In addition, the foreign exchange fund is gradually increasing the reserves of sterling, and the proposal of Li Jianhui and others to increase the yen, foreign exchange and gold reserves has not been well implemented, which also makes Li Jianhui and others very dissatisfied.

In fact, Li Jianhui has always had doubts about the British pound because of the memory of his previous life. On the contrary, it is the Japanese yen. Li Jianhui is quite clear that it will continue to appreciate in recent years, and it will not decline from its peak until the mid-90s.

Therefore, compared with the British pound, Li Jianhui has always been more optimistic about the Japanese yen. A number of securities investment companies under the Xinjian Department have achieved quite good results in long yen last year.

As for the shorting of the US dollar, Li Jianhui was afraid that the American consortium would not play the cards according to common sense, so he did not let these securities investment companies sell on a large scale, but only made some pocket money on it.

Originally, England thought that this time it would be safe and secure, with the support of the three Commonwealth countries, and Thailand also supported it. As a result, in the final statement, the governors of the Philippine and Indonesian central banks said that they have not yet done a good job of foreign trade with the British pound. Billing preparation.

Obviously, for the first time, the consultations between the major central banks of England and ASEAN failed to reach a consensus, and Li Jianhui was also happy to see this situation.

American capital is not a good bird, and once the British capital is re-emerged, it will not be much better. It is a pity that he does not have much say in the Hong Kong dollar now, otherwise he must find ways to promote the internationalization of the Hong Kong dollar.

(End of this chapter)