Hong Kong exempts financial management from the harsh rules of quarantine of coronavirus

Hong Kong’s chief executives and executives of some listed companies have been exempted from strict border quarantine rules, as business groups have called for measures to be extended to other sectors.

Banks, insurers and asset managers authorized by Hong Kong’s financial regulators can apply to visit two senior employees and return to the city every two months if they are vaccinated and travel for “business purposes” without having to be quarantined.

Managers of large companies in major Hong Kong stock market indices may also apply for a quarantine exemption if travel plans are “essential to the operation” of the business. The new rules, some of which were posted on the Hong Kong government website on Friday, are immediately in force.

The decision worried that Hong Kong was opening more slowly than other business sites strict quarantine policy and vaccine rates that are much lower than in London, New York, and Singapore. The financial services sector accounts for more than 21 percent of the territory’s gross domestic product.

Tara Joseph, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, said: “This is a welcome development and we believe it should be extended to all sectors.”

But several banks warned that they were still looking to clarify details about the application process, including what defines a “senior executive,” and how employees would protect the protection of non-fifties passengers.

“Hong Kong has been isolated from the financial world and we are not there now,” a Wall Street bank executive said.

An executive at a second U.S. bank said the exception may seem like a “1 percent special deal,” but that it will allow Hong Kong to maintain its status as an international financial center.

But Frederik Gollob, president of the European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, said the government needed to go “significantly beyond that” as the city’s quarantine demands were helping to boost talent.

“There is growing frustration in the face of this de facto blockade,” Gollob said, adding that businesses want a wider relaxation of restrictions on vaccine passengers. “The government has not connected vaccination campaign to a clear strategy for reopening “.

HSBC said the bank exemption “will boost more economic activity across a wide range of sectors”. Public health care and business travel can be allowed to gradually return to normal. “

Passengers eight “high-risk” countries among others, the UK, India and Brazil – and almost all unaccompanied passengers – have to be put in a hotel for forty days after arriving in Hong Kong. Arrivals from other embedded locations must be for a 14-day hotel quarantine, with the exception of Australia and New Zealand, where they must be quarantined for seven days.

Hong Kong’s global banks have been in discussions with Asifma, the Asian capital markets industry organization, over whether to put pressure on the government to grant exceptions to passenger quarantine rules since the end of last year. Some expressed fear that the rules could damage the territory’s position as a global financial center.

Concerns have escalated as vaccination rates remain low in the city. Only 15% of Hong Kong’s population is fully integrated, 28% in Singapore, 27% in London and 43% in New York.

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