Singapore keeps crown as Asia’s top financial centre, outranks Hong Kong on all factors of competitiveness: GFCI report

Hong Kong stays in fourth place on global list behind New York, London and Singapore
Shanghai rose one notch to sixth place, while Seoul improved by one spot to 10th and Beijing lost two places to 15th

Banking & finance

Cheryl Arcibal

Published: 10:00am, 22 Mar 2024

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Singapore continues to outrank Hong Kong – albeit by a single point – as the top financial centre in Asia, according to the latest edition of the semi-annual Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI).

Singapore and Hong Kong rank third and fourth behind New York and London but ahead of San Francisco as the global top five remains unchanged in the 35th edition of the semi-annual survey, compared with the previous edition in September. Singapore overtook Hong Kong to become Asia’s top financial centre in 2022.

The study by the China Development Institute in Shenzhen and the London think tank Z/Yen Partners covers 133 financial centres. Among the top 20 ranked centres, none moved up or down by more than four spots.

“This suggests no major changes in the economic outlook across the leading economies in the world,” the report said. “New York continues to have a clear lead over second place London in the index. Singapore and Hong Kong rank third and fourth with only one point separating them. San Francisco held on to fifth place.”

View of commercial buildings in Central, Hong Kong. Photo: Dickson Lee

By area of competitiveness, Singapore was deemed better than Hong Kong in all of the five criteria used: business environment, human capital, infrastructure, financial sector development and reputational and general.

In Asia-Pacific, the average increase in ratings was 1.89 per cent.

Shanghai rose one notch to place sixth, while Seoul also improved by one place to take the 10th position. Beijing, meanwhile, lost two places to drop to 15th.

Respondents from western Europe and North America rated Asia-Pacific centres above the world average.

When respondents were asked which centres they expect to become more significant in the next two to three years, cities in Asia took eight of the top 15 spots, with Seoul getting the most mentions, followed by Singapore. Dubai garnered the third-highest mentions, followed by Hong Kong. Other financial centres that made this list were Shanghai, South Korea’s Busan, Beijing, Gift City in Gujarat, India, and Shenzhen.

“In general, people are more optimistic about the future of their own centre than people outside that centre,” the study said. “Those in Hong Kong and Singapore are most confident about the future competitiveness of their centre.”

The report ranks financial centres using a ‘factor assessment’ model, with two sets of ratings, one from survey respondents and one generated by a statistical model based on quantitative data. The two are combined to generate the final ranking.

The survey portion is an online questionnaire that asks respondents from the financial sector to rate each centre as a place to do business, using a 10-point scale from very poor to excellent. The statistical model uses quantitative data about each financial centre.