Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui said the government’s new Capital Investment Entrant Scheme will begin accepting applications from Friday.

Hui said more details will be announced by the government’s investment promotion arm InvestHK, and a website will be available highlighting the scheme’s application procedures, standards and relevant qualifying assets.

Applicants will need to invest a minimum of HK$30 million in total and on the city’s tech and innovation sectors.

Hui expects the scheme to give a shot in the arm for the city’s asset management industry.

On plans to keep the financial markets open under severe weather, the treasury chief said authorities aim to announce implementation details by the middle of this year.

“Hong Kong as an international financial centre, [but] we still lack such an arrangement, and we need to have such operations. So we must do it, and we must do it as early as we can once we [figure out] the feasibility,” Hui said.

He said the core issues under discussion include facilitating with banks to settle payments and arranging securities staff to work from home.

“All of these issues involve the front-, middle- and back-end staff to deal with it together, so now we are focusing on the details of how to implement it."