HONG KONG -- Argentina's economic crisis and the disappearance of the peso as the national currency will put the Hong Kong in the spotlight and the local dollar under pressure in foreign exchange markets.
Hong Kong is the most important economy with a currency pegged to the U.S. dollar, and already leading exporters and some prominent economists have begun to complain that the pegged currency is crippling an already ailing economy.
What gives the debate more piquancy is that only a matter of weeks ago, Hong Kong's new financial secretary, Antony Leung Kam-chung, sent financial markets into a spin by raising questions about problems with the H.K.-U.S. link.