Hong Kong’s richest man signaled he sees no end in sight for the demand in property that’s been driving up prices in the world’s most expensive real estate market."Demand remains very strong," CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd.’s billionaire chairman Li Ka-shing said to reporters on Thursday before the start of the annual dinner for his group of companies.

Hong Kong is eroding Singapore’s home advantage. 14 companies based in the Southeast Asian city have chosen to list on their home stock market this year, compared with 13 on the bourse operated by Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Limited, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.It’s not all bad news for the Lion City: Singapore Exchange Ltd. beats HKEX in funds raised from the initial public offerings.

Razer Inc. climbed on its first day of trading as the maker of computer accessories for gamers became the second technology stock in a week to jump in its Hong Kong debut.The stock rose to as high as HK$5.49, 41 percent above the $HK3.88 price of its initial public offering. The San Francisco and Singapore-based company raised HK$4.1 billion ($530 million) in the IPO.

Hong Kong and Singapore, which have vied for supremacy as financial technology hubs over the past couple of years, have now decided to join forces.The cities’ central banks have signed a fintech cooperation agreement that will foster collaboration on business referrals, joint innovation projects, information sharing and the exchange of expertise, Norman Chan, chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority said Wednesday.

Singapore’s second-largest lender has decided that the best place to expand its research is the country’s rival market Hong Kong.Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. plans to add coverage of 60 Hong Kong-listed stocks, with 14 to 20 started by year-end, according to Carmen Lee, its head of research.

Singapore home prices have reached a bottom and will rebound, while Hong Kong’s “crazy” housing market will continue to defy gravity, according to BNP Paribas.“Very significant” income growth will drive the first leg of a recovery in home prices in Singapore, where property ownership as a proportion of household assets is near a record low, BNP’s Asia-Pacific head of research for financial institutions and property Wee Liat Lee said in an interview while visiting the city-state.

After years of declining home prices in Singapore, analysts are expecting a turnaround as early as this year even as most of the government’s property cooling measures remain in place.Singapore property prices will rise between 5 percent and 10 percent next year after bottoming out in 2017, analyst Vikrant Pandey at UOB Kay Hian said.

The threat of government curbs to tame prices makes Singapore and Hong Kong residential property unattractive, the regional head of UBS Group AG’s real-estate investment arm said.“We have no exposure in the Singapore residential market and we are very comfortable not having any exposure,” Graham Mackie, head of real estate for Asia Pacific at UBS Asset Management, said in an interview.

Stocks in Asia touched a level not seen since December 2007 as a rally in Hong Kong-listed Chinese companies offset weakness in South Korea and Japan amid speculation of a Saturday missile launch by Pyongyang.The MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbed 0.4 percent to 161.81 as of 4:33 p.m. in Hong Kong, led by China Gas Holdings, which extended gains from a record yesterday after bullish growth forecasts.

China plans to ban trading of bitcoin and other virtual currencies on domestic exchanges, dealing another blow to the 150 billion dollars cryptocurrency market after the country outlawed initial coin offerings last week.The ban will only apply to trading of cryptocurrencies on exchanges, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the information is private.