No policy obstacles on renminbi product trading: SFC
The city’s market regulator said on Friday that there are currently no policy obstacles when it comes trading renminbi products. The comment comes as a scheme which will allow investors to choose to trade in either Hong Kong dollars or renminbi is set to launch on June 19. HKEx said earlier that 21 companies were on the dual counter list. “Actually, the number of 21 companies may seem small, but it represents 40 percent of our total daily trading volume. That's still some of a scale,” Julia Leung, the CEO of the Securities and Futures Commission, said at the Caixin Summer Summit. Leung added that Swap Connect, an investment link between Hong Kong and the mainland which launched last month, is operating smoothly with an average daily trading volume of around 3 to 4 billion renminbi. “As a starting point, this is considered a good performance,” she said. In a video speech at the same summit, Chief Executive John Lee said the financial markets of the mainland and Hong Kong are becoming increasingly interconnected. "Hong Kong will continue to promote the expansion and optimisation of the various connection projects with the mainland, which include studying the possibility of adding renminbi stock trading counters to the Hong Kong Stock Connect and launching national bond futures in Hong Kong," he said. Lee said that by offering more risk management products to overseas investors, the mainland financial market will be opened up further and Hong Kong's capital market will also be given a boost.