ING: Hong Kong Green Finance can be traced to Nurem

ING Bank believes that the mainland and Hong Kong governments have taken the initiative to support the situation, which will promote the development of green finance in Asia. Among them, the Hong Kong Government announced that it will issue sovereign green bonds and launch a certification subsidy scheme to help Hong Kong’s green finance development to meet international standards such as New York and London.

The global financial industry is developing green and sustainable. Europe and the United States started earlier. Zhao Huili, head of sustainable finance of ING Bank Asia Pacific, said that the Hong Kong government supports green finance development. “Hong Kong is one of the few regions with incentives.” It is already a world-class financial center, and as a major town for Chinese-funded enterprises to finance abroad, green finance development is expected to be in London and New York.”

Car energy as a major player

Looking ahead, Zhao Huili expects that transportation, renewable energy, automotive and real estate industries will become major players in green and sustainable finance. In the constant communication with the industry, Zhao Huili said that the issue of debt does not regard certification expenses as an additional cost. On the contrary, enterprises are paying more and more attention to issues such as climate change. “Many shareholders will take the initiative to ask enterprises to promote sustainable development. The focus of future investors will be extended from past credit risk to sustainability,” she said, adding that Japanese pension funds have specifically allocated funds to invest in sustainable development.

ING Bank began researching sustainable development in 1996 and launched a sustainable-themed equity fund in 2000. Zhao Huili pointed out that the Asian region, especially the mainland and Hong Kong, are pushing hard to catch up with Europe and the United States in the next few years.

As for ING Bank, Zhao Huili said that the bank will increase its support for climate change in the future. The target is to increase the amount of financing from the year of 2017 by two times, and the supporting projects include renewable energy. The bank also issued the first green debt in 2015.