Hong Kong Baptist University may issue bonds to finance development

Hong Kong Baptist University is “actively considering” issuing bonds to finance its future development, including campus redevelopment and its new Chinese medicine hospital, according to its president. But Professor Alexander Wai Ping-kong also told the South China Morning Post on Thursday that the public institution would be cautious with bond issuance to avoid creating pressure on the future management. “Our university needs funding in many aspects, such as our Chinese medicine hospital and the redevelopment of the old campus,” he said. “Financing has become an issue.” The city’s first Chinese medicine hospital, operated by a company under Baptist University, opened last December. “Issuing bonds is one of the options I am actively considering … if we can issue bonds, it would definitely be good news,” Wai said. Wai, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, was speaking on the sidelines of the “two sessions”, the nation’s annual top political gathering in Beijing. In his budget speech last month, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said the government was open to supporting universities in issuing bonds to fund the proposed University Town in the Northern Metropolis, a 30,000-hectare (74,130-acre) megaproject close to the border with mainland China. But Wai stopped short of specifying the scale of the potential bond issuance, adding that he preferred bonds with longer maturities and lower interest rates. “When it comes to issuing bonds, I do not want our future president and the council to have ‘headaches’,” Wai, who began a five-year term in 2021, said. The university would consult financial experts before any final decision, he added. Baptist University, which has a campus in the prime residential area of Kowloon Tong that is the smallest of the city’s public varsities, has previously expressed interest in relocating its entire operation, or part of it, to the University Town. Wai on Thursday reiterated the school’s “strong interest” in moving to the Northern Metropolis but stopped short of disclosing any progress. “We have been working hard on preparations,” he said. “Since our campus is not large, how to make effective use of the University Town is something we are actively discussing right now.” He said relocating laboratories and graduate schools to the academic town was one of the options being considered, but he also conceded that splitting the campus this way was not ideal. The annual budget announced last month earmarked an additional HK$10 billion (US$1.27 billion) in loans to support campus construction of the academic town. Wai said it was difficult to estimate whether the funding would suffice at this moment. Authorities have planned to increase the proposed area for the University Town from 90 hectares to 100 hectares, with the government also set to allocate three sites in Hung Shui Kiu and Ha Tsuen for tertiary institutions to develop campuses. Also in Beijing, Kennedy Wong Ying-ho, chairman of the council and court of Baptist University, said the school had mandated artificial intelligence as a compulsory subject for all academic disciplines starting in September last year to equip students for impending industry disruptions. “So, if I were still a student, I would better grasp the opportunities brought to various industries by the development of artificial intelligence,” Wong, a deputy to the National People’s Congress, said. Additional reporting by Lam Ka-sing in Beijing