Financial Services and the Treasury Secretary Christopher Hui on Thursday said Hong Kong had made substantial progress in becoming a global gold trading centre — and more is still to come. Speaking on RTHK's Backchat programme, Hui said a clearing system had been trial operating since July and has already seen a large amount of gold deposited. By the end of the year, he added, HKEX will announce details of renminbi (RMB) gold futures, with the clearing system to be formally launched in the first quarter of next year. Hui said the goal is to combine the strengths of the world's three existing gold trading hubs — the UK, the US and Switzerland — into a single platform. "What we hope to achieve is with this change in geopolitics and also with the growing desire for investors to diversify, they can within the Asia time zone find these three functions together in Hong Kong," he said. "We have storage with clearing, at the same time we have futures traded here and also we have refinery. And that's exactly what we are aiming at in our overall gold development plan." On the internationalisation of the RMB, Hui said Hong Kong had been continuously expanding the offshore RMB pool and creating more use cases for the currency. Hui added the plan to let mainland investors buy and sell Hong Kong-listed stocks directly in RMB through the Stock Connect scheme is good for both investors and the market. It makes trading more convenient and would bring greater liquidity in the future, he explained. Edited by Tony Sabine

Asian markets were mixed on Thursday as traders eyed a high-stakes summit between presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump that is set to focus on artificial intelligence, trade and the Middle East war with Iran. In Hong Kong, the benchmark Hang Seng Index opened down 184 points, or 0.74 percent, at 24,649. The tech index slipped 34 points, or 0.78 percent, to 4,344 while the China enterprises index opened fell 58 points, or 0.7 percent, to 8,215. Up north, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index was down 11 points, or 0.28 percent, at the opening of trading at 3,925. The Shenzhen Component Index fell 61 points, or 0.45 percent, to 13,575 while the ChiNext Index was down 0.38 percent at 3,366. With the South Korean stock markets closed on Thursday and Friday, the Nikkei opened 457 points, or 0.7 percent, at 65,476 before extending its gains to 854 points at one stage before noon. Xi's arrival in Washington coincided with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announcing that the superpowers had agreed to extend a trade truce by two months. The simmering trade war between the world's top two economies is a key concern: while both sides have maintained a tariff truce for nearly a year, they have yet to secure a lasting agreement. The "economic detente" will now extend beyond its November 10 deadline to January 10, Bessent said. But hopes of business deals have been dimmed by the fact that there are no Chinese chief executives in Xi's delegation, two sources said. In contrast, top US tech bosses, including the leaders of major AI companies, are set to attend Thursday's banquet. Pre-summit talks between Vice Premier He Lifeng and Bessent included discussions to create a communication channel for AI concerns, as warnings swirled that the technology risks wiping out humanity. "Market participants are looking for signs of cooperation [however feigned] in managing the risks of AI without raising the regulatory risk to the space," said Kyle Rodda, senior financial market analyst at Capital.com. (AFP/Xinhua) Edited by Tony Sabine

Very little is known about which Chinese business executives, if any, are expected to attend.

Persistent growth of Chinese exports to the U.S. is helping the world's second-largest economy ride out ongoing domestic challenges.