PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you for coming to meet with me this morning on a Sunday. It is an indication of your commitment to and the high value we place as well on the great relationships, professional relationships across the Hong Kong Government and its regulatory agencies.
I was talking this morning about ‘One Country, Two Systems’ and the importance of the rule of law, independent judiciary, strong transparent regulation here in Hong Kong.
That is one of the key reasons why Hong Kong has been, continues to be one of the most important financial centres, banking centres in the world. Of course, a place where there is so much Australian investment and participation.
Do you know there are more Australians living in Hong Kong than in any city outside of Australia in the world other than London?
There is over 100,000 Australians here. In fact, I’ve never lived in Hong Kong but I’ve spent a lot of time here over the years and my son lived here for quite a few years, as have I guess by now millions of Australians have lived here at one point or another.
So I want to welcome the stronger links we have forged this year in particular, including on big data analytics, cyber-security, FinTech, Blockchain and continued work on tackling corruption, promoting competition, enforcing the rule of law and fulfilling our international legal obligations.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority relationship with our AUSTRAC, SFC with ASIC on FinTech and regulatory sandboxing for ensuring that we constantly stay ahead of the curve in terms of bringing technologies to bear to ensure better service for customers, greater transparency and of course our ability to stop criminal organisations, terrorist organisations, criminal regimes like North Korea, exploiting the financial transparency and financial opportunities of any system anywhere in the world, whether it is in Hong Kong or Australia or Europe or the Americas, we all, I know, have a vested interest in ensuring that we enforce the rule of law both domestically and internationally.
It is great to be with you and I look forward to our discussion.
[ENDS]