In September, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu unveiled the city’s first five-year plan along with his policy address, highlighting Hong Kong’s strategic role in promoting the greater use of the yuan outside mainland China as a key priority. In the last of a four-part series on the internationalisation of the yuan, Lam Ka-sing examines Hong Kong’s push to make the currency part of everyday life – from vending machines and retail payments to government spending and cross-border trade.
At Hong Kong’s Central Ferry Pier No 8, mainland Chinese tourist Lei is surprised to find that the digital currency e-CNY can be used to buy drinks from a vending machine.
Lei, a logistics worker in his twenties from Guangxi, had never encountered the digital currency and related payment system developed by the country’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, in real life.