{"id":70802,"date":"2025-09-18T03:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T03:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/70802\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T03:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T03:30:10","slug":"hong-kong-matches-us-feds-first-rate-cut-of-2025-in-boon-for-mortgage-borrowers-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/70802\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong matches US Fed\u2019s first rate cut of 2025, in boon for mortgage borrowers, economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hong Kong\u2019s de facto central bank cut the city\u2019s base rate for the first time this year, bringing down the cost of funding to help reboot businesses and reduce the burden on mortgage borrowers.<\/p>\n

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority<\/a> (HKMA) reduced the city\u2019s base rate by a quarter point to 4.5 per cent on Thursday, matching the US Federal Reserve<\/a>\u2019s cut hours earlier to its target rate, which fell to the range of 4 per cent to 4.25 per cent during the sixth meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) this year. The new base rate is the lowest since December 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lower interest rate would reduce the burden of mortgage borrowers and companies, which will have a positive impact on Hong Kong\u2019s economy and property market,\u201d said HKMA\u2019s chief executive Eddie Yue Wai-man after the rate cut.<\/p>\n

The Fed\u2019s chairman Jerome Powell pointed to growing signs of weakness in the US labour market to explain why officials decided it was time to cut rates after holding them steady since December, amid concerns over tariff-driven inflation.<\/p>\n

\u201cLabour demand has softened, and the recent pace of job creation appears to be running below the break-even rate needed to hold the unemployment rate constant,\u201d Powell said in his post-meeting press conference. He added, \u201cI can no longer say the labour market is \u2018very solid\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"USUS Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell during a press conference in Washington DC on September 17, 2025. Photo: Reuters<\/p>\n

The Fed\u2019s 25-basis-point cut was widely expected. It is seen as the start of a rate-cut cycle that is likely to extend into next year. Some 94 per cent of traders expected a 25-basis-point cut, and the rest predicted a 50-basis-point cut, according to data from CME FedWatch, which was based on Fed fund futures contracts on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hong Kong\u2019s de facto central bank cut the city\u2019s base rate for the first time this year, bringing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[48877,48875,79,381,20601,356,179,18,48876,18639,18641,4202,20288,19,17,5129,48878,18634,16332],"class_list":{"0":"post-70802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-allianz-global-investors","9":"tag-bank-of-china-hong-kong","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-china","12":"tag-cme-group","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-economy","15":"tag-eire","16":"tag-hang-seng-bank","17":"tag-hibor","18":"tag-hkma","19":"tag-hong-kong","20":"tag-hsbc","21":"tag-ie","22":"tag-ireland","23":"tag-jerome-powell","24":"tag-linked-exchange-rate-system","25":"tag-shanghai-commercial-bank","26":"tag-us-federal-reserve"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}