Yuan ‘Seismic Change’ Far Off for Architect of Hong Kong Peg

A free-trade zone opened by China last year is unlikely to be a major step toward making the yuan fully convertible and suitable as a Hong Kong dollar peg, the architect of the city’s 30-year-old currency regime said.

The area, started in Shanghai last September as a testing ground for liberalizing interest rates and yuan usage, is “not likely to be a seismic change” for the nation because firms still face too many restrictions, John Greenwood, chief economist at Invesco Asset Management, said in an April 28 interview. HSBC Holdings Plc Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver said last month that the yuan will be fully convertible by 2017.