Hong Kong's offshore renminbi bond market is poised for further expansion after the Chinese yuan became the leading currency for bond issuances in the city's listed bond market, industry executives and academics said, citing lower borrowing costs and a resilient currency attracting global issuers and investors.
Data released earlier this month by rating agency Dagong Global Hong Kong showed that offshore RMB bonds — also known as dim sum bonds — accounted for 37 percent of listed bond issuances by value in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in the first nine months of 2026, overtaking the United States dollar's 33 percent share. At 117 issuances, RMB-denominated bonds also led by number.
Building on that momentum, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd is scheduled to launch its HKEX Offshore RMB Bond Index on Monday, which will serve as a reference for market trends and as an underlying index for exchange-traded funds.
Lower borrowing costs remain a major draw. "The renminbi, particularly in the offshore market, has become one of the world's cheapest funding currencies. This cost advantage is what matters," Gan Tian, CEO of China Asset Management (Hong Kong) Ltd, said in an interview with China Daily.
Global technology giants have been tapping bond markets worldwide as spending on artificial intelligence drives their financing needs, he said, adding that some have paid more than 7 percent to borrow for 30 years in the US market.
Gan said he expects some of these companies to sell dim sum bonds in Hong Kong within the next 12 months, and that investment banks in the city are already approaching prospective borrowers.
The First Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development of the HKSAR (2026-2030), released in September, calls for strengthening the city's role as the world's largest offshore RMB hub by expanding the dim sum bond market and broadening the range of maturities.
With policy support adding momentum, Gan said the dim sum bond boom is "only just beginning", and predicted "explosive growth" over the next few years.
He said he expects Hong Kong's offshore RMB liquidity pool to grow from about 1 trillion yuan ($150 billion) to at least 5 trillion yuan by the end of 2030, and the dim sum bond market to expand from 2.6 trillion yuan to at least 10 trillion yuan.
Rocky Tung Yat-ngok, executive director of Hong Kong's Financial Services Development Council, said that many foreign issuers are considering Hong Kong, "and these issuers aren't only sovereign issuers, but also multilateral development banks and companies from developed markets".
Some of these development banks have never explored issuing bonds in Hong Kong, or borrowing in RMB, Tung said, underscoring the potential to attract new issuers.
Investor demand is also strengthening. The yuan has gained more than 4 percent against the US dollar this year, even as currencies including the euro and yen have weakened.
Gan, from China Asset Management, said that expectations of stability and appreciation are encouraging more overseas institutional investors to allocate funds to dim sum bonds.
In August, State Grid Corp of China's 14.9 billion yuan offshore RMB bond sale in Hong Kong drew strong global demand, with orders peaking at over 193 billion yuan — about 13 times the issue size.
But today's interest-rate advantage may not endure, said Liu Yang, an associate professor of finance at the University of Hong Kong's Business School, emphasizing that the HKSAR should use the opportunity to improve secondary-market liquidity and risk-management tools.
Liu called for the establishment of a liquid benchmark yield curve to support price discovery and growth of the broader bond market. As this typically requires an actively traded government bond market, he said that offshore RMB government bonds should be issued more frequently, in larger amounts and featuring more maturities.
