The Annual Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong kicks off on Monday. The two day event is themed "Asia: Powering World Growth". Among notable guest speakers, is Hong Kong's Chief Executive Leung ChunYing. 

These Chinese RMB signs are getting more visible in the city, and many expect a lot more of them in the years to come.

An increasing number of Hong Kong residents now hold Chinese RMBs either for savings or for investment, owing to its stable valuation and steady appreciation.

And as the RMB forges ahead to becoming an international currency, it becomes all the more imperative for Hong Kong to build on its first mover status in the offshore RMB business -- as rivals London, Singapore and Taiwan close in.

And this is what Hong Kong Chief Executive CY Leung highlighted in his keynote speech at the start of the seventh Asian Financial Forum.

Hong Kong's still got much to do to keep ahead of the game. Savers and investors for instance still have to deal with the limit on RMBs they can exchange on a daily basis. Experts say removing that cap would lead to exponential growth in RMB-denominated products in the city.

Players in the financial industry will be big beneficiaries, says AIA Group, which has sizeable exposure on the Mainland.

Chief Executive and President Mark Tucker is a panelist at the same forum.

Beyond the RMB - CY Leung also spoke of the need to innovate the city's the financial services industry, through the issuance of Islamic bonds. Hong Kong this year plans to issue sukuks, bonds structured according to the tenets of Islam, in a move to capture a large slice of the more than one trillion dollar market.

All these come of the heels of Hong Kong's efforts to stay relevant and resilient in the face of competition to stay as the world's premiere global financial centre of the world. 

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