The Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA) has urged the government to introduce tax incentives to help develop the Northern Metropolis and to improve the stock exchange’s listing regime to further cement the city’s role in international finance. The organisation’s submission for Hong Kong’s first five-year plan asked the government to consider tax incentives for investors who fund start-ups based in the Northern Metropolis, said Stephen Law Cheuk-kin, president of the...

The People’s Liberation Army used a drone to deliver cases of cash and gold bars in a field during a “wartime financial support” drill apparently simulating a Taiwan operation, according to a state media report. A multi-rotor drone was used to drop the camouflage cases at designated locations during the exercise conducted by the PLA Eastern Theatre Command, national newspaper Defence Times said last week. The report prompted heated discussion online and has since been deleted. It included...

Chinese tech giant Baidu on Tuesday posted a 4 per cent year-on-year decline in second-quarter revenue, as continued weakness in advertising outweighed growth in its artificial intelligence cloud operations, highlighting intensifying competition in China’s tech sector. Revenue for the three months ended June reached 31.3 billion yuan (US$4.62 billion), slightly missing the 31.6 billion yuan consensus estimate from analysts polled by Bloomberg. Net profit for the quarter was 2.3 billion...

Hong Kong’s population rose slightly by 0.3 per cent year on year to more than 7.5 million by mid-2026 but the number of babies born fell by 15.6 per cent to below 30,000 for the first time on record, despite government incentives to boost the birth rate. The government on Tuesday attributed the slight population increase to “various measures for talent attraction and labour importation” that continued to bring people from around the world to Hong Kong, which offset the impact of natural...

A Russian attack on a village in the Kharkiv region of northeast Ukraine killed 10 people, Kyiv said on Tuesday, vowing to respond. The strike comes amid a surge in civilian deaths in the four-and-a-half-year war. Russian forces “carried out a rocket strike on Pechenihy”, a village around 40km (25 miles) from the Russian border, Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Synegubov said on social media. “According to preliminary information, 10 people were killed,” he added, with 17 people wounded. Ukrainian...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to host Myanmar’s Min Aung Hlaing on Tuesday, as the Southeast Asian leader seeks an economic reboot for his war-ravaged country and fresh supplies of fertiliser, oil and weapons. A pariah to much of the West over his 2021 coup and role as army chief during the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslim minority, Min Aung Hlaing has nonetheless found friends in Beijing, New Delhi and Bangkok over recent months. That followed a heavily criticised election won...

Peace prospects in the Middle East faded, with US President Donald Trump ruling out a renewed ceasefire deal with Iran and more fighting breaking out in Lebanon. Trump said “no” when asked whether he wanted a new Iran accord to replace a 60-day agreement that expired on Monday. “They want to make a deal, but they’re not going to make the kind of deal that I feel is necessary,” he told reporters at the White House. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, rose above US$91 per barrel, having gained...