Hong Kong's foreign-exchange market can leverage its strengths to become an international centre, Monetary Authority Chief Executive Joseph Yam says.

In his weekly column Viewpoint, Mr Yam said the local forex market has adequate liquidity to cope with large orders, and its supporting infrastructure is arguably the best in the world, particularly in managing settlement or Herstatt risks.

"There should be considerable demand and supply arising from economic or trading activities in our time zone. After all, the bulk of the foreign reserves of the world are held by economies in this region

"The distribution of global activity - economic, trade, finance and commodity - relative to the location of its originator is definitely shifting to our time zone," he added.