PANews reported on June 23 that Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan said in a speech at a forum on June 21: "As an international financial center, Hong Kong must continue to reform and innovate to continuously enhance our competitive advantages. We embrace the development of digital assets and have accelerated the improvement of relevant legal and regulatory frameworks in recent years. For example, the virtual asset trading platform licensing system has issued 10 licenses and is reviewing another eight applications. We have also just completed the legislation of stablecoins, which will take effect on August 1, making Hong Kong one of the first jurisdictions in the world to establish a statutory regulatory framework for stablecoins."