A HK$4.65 million Disaster Relief Fund grant has been approved for the Salvation Army to undertake a relief project for flood victims in Pakistan, the Hong Kong government said on Wednesday.

Flood victims jostle for positions in a line to receive evening food handouts from a charity at a road-side tent camp.

The grant is further to a disbursement of $5.3 million made earlier to World Vision, Oxfam and Save the Children.

Hong Kong officials have reached an agreement on the city’s first minimum wage but unions said Wednesday that they will keep pushing for higher pay to shrink a growing income gap.

A government commission tasked with deciding the controversial new wage floor — an issue which has divided business and labour groups for more than a decade — said this week it had settled on a figure, which it did not disclose.

The bodies of those killed in a horrific hostage-taking in the Philippines — including a Chinese-Canadian man and his two daughters — were handed over to Chinese authorities Wednesday and returned to Hong Kong.

Eight tourists were killed, along with their Filipino captor, by the time the tense 12-hour standoff ended Monday night. The tourists were on the bus as part of a trip organized by a Hong Kong-based travel agency.

Among the dead are Chinese-Canadian Ken Leung, 58, and his two daughters, 21-year-old Doris and 14-year-old Jessie.

Bank of Communications Co. posted a 30% rise in first-half net profit on wider lending margins and higher interest and fee income, but its result was eclipsed by smaller rival China Merchants Bank Co., whose first-half earnings jumped 60% from a year earlier.

Hong Kong police said Wednesday they had found the body of a New Zealand man who went missing while hiking, following a weeklong search.

Officers found the body during a search of a wooded area close to a reservoir in the suburban Tai Po district, a spokesman said by phone.

Police contacted the family of Stephen Morrissey, who worked as a pilot for Air New Zealand, and confirmed the body was his, the spokesman said.

Hong Kong stocks ended 0.43 per cent higher on Wednesday as dealers ignored a string of poor US data to extend a recent run of gains.

The benchmark Hang Seng Index closed 92.22 points up at 21,549.88. Turnover was 62.48 billion Hong Kong dollars ($A8.82 billion).

China’s possible intervention in a Hong Kong lawsuit is sparking concerns that Beijing may compromise the high degree of automony promised to Hong Kong and its courts when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

The legal dispute stems from conflicting Chinese and Hong Kong practices on sovereign immunity.

Cricket teams from Afghanistan and Hong Kong are to appear in a club-level event in Pakistan, in a tentative step towards reviving the sport in the violence-hit country, an official said Wednesday.

Pakistan has not hosted any international cricket since Islamist militants attacked the Sri Lankan team in Lahore in March 2009.

Hong Kong and China have loosened restrictions on yuan banking in a move that’s expected to prompt banks in the Asian finance center to offer a wider range of financial products in the national currency.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, still maintains its own currency, the Hong Kong dollar, but it started to offer banking services in the yuan, also known as the renminbi, in 2003. The new deal signed between the People’s Bank of China and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority expands the services from individual to corporate clients.

Police here raided the headquarters of Henderson Land Development Co., seizing documents and questioning individuals in relation to a number of canceled sales at one of the blue-chip company’s luxury apartment buildings.

Commissioner for Police Tang King-shing told reporters that no arrests were made in its operation, though it had “invited a number of people back to the Commercial Crime Bureau to assist us in our investigation.” Police declined to provide more details about the inquiry.