will be an ideal place for corporates to raise funds for infrastructure projects and manage investments for their ‘ belt and road ’ developments. the capital investment projects are also expected to create new opportunities for the use of rmb in trade and investment activities, giving rise to new opportunities for rmb settlement, financing and asset management in the region. to ride on these opportunities, hong kong has been actively pursuing measures to develop into a hub for corporate treasury centres ( ctcs ) as chinese corporates and multinational companies expand their footprints and increasingly demand centralised treasury management. the hkma has been working closely with the government to develop a concessionary tax regime to provide a more market - friendly environment for these companies to set up their ctcs in hong kong, and the relevant amendment bill was introduced into the legislative council last week. the third trend is that market developments, both in terms of turnover and product range, have picked up momentum in the past year. there is a rapidly growing list of products provided by our banks in hong kong to meet their clients ’ liquidity, hedging and other business needs in rmb. at the end of april, the daily turnover of rmb foreign exchange transactions in hong kong had reached us $ 93 billion equivalent, more than eight times greater than five years ago. the average daily turnover of hong kong ’ s rmb real time gross settlement system also exceeded rmb1 trillion recently. going forward, we should see more products denominated in rmb. this is an area where market participants can play their part and why we also think seminars like this are important in bringing together ideas and looking at solutions. building market infrastructure the hkma has played a major role in promoting market development, with our strategy focusing on strengthening market infrastructure to support offshore rmb business. indeed, liquidity is the linchpin in growing this offshore business and the hkma has in place a rmb400 billion currency swap agreement with the people ’ s bank of china which can be activated when market conditions warrant. in addition, we have made available an rmb liquidity facility to banks which is currently offering intraday repos of up to rmb10 billion, as well as overnight funds on t + 0 basis and one - day and one - week funds settled on t + 1 basis. we have also appointed seven banks as primary liquidity providers ( plps ) and provided each with a bilateral repo facility of up to rmb2 billion. these facilities have helped banks to

that we have already received very positive response from the academia and have started the preparation work with these top - notch experts. the hkma will work with the expert group to study different important issues, such as privacy protection, cybersecurity, and interoperability, and other technical and business aspects surrounding cbdc. while members of the expert group do not have any 2 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches formal advisory role, they will provide us with valuable insights and contribute to our future deliberations on cbdc. closing in closing, i would say that project e - hkd is a hugely complex and challenging undertaking. i said earlier that the project goes well beyond just technology. it will take our collective wisdom and effort to create innovative use cases so that in the end, if ehkd were implemented, there could be widespread adoption so as to achieve the network effect required of any successful retail payment instrument. this is going to be a long and winding journey. but as the chinese saying goes, " a thousand miles begins with a single step " ( ). we are grateful that you have all chosen to join us to take important first step in this meaningful e - hkd journey. i know you're all eagerly waiting to hear about the potential use cases, so i'll give the floor to each pilot group to share their creative ideas. thank you. 3 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches