The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) have agreed to increase the daily trading quota for both northbound and southbound trading links from 1 May.
The daily quota for each of the northbound trading links will be increased to RMB52bn (£5.8bn, €6.7bn, $8.2bn) for investors in Hong Kong buying and selling stocks of companies listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen.
While the southbound links will increase to RMB42bn.
Previously, the daily quotas for northbound and southbound trading were RMB13bn and RMB10.5bn, respectively.
Stock Connect was launched in 2014, in November last year the total value of trading through the programme surpassed $1trn.
HKMA support
Ashley Alder, the SFC’s chief executive, said: “We welcome [this] announcement, which is the result of close and intensive cooperation between the SFC and the CSRC.”
Norman Chan, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority chief executive, said Stock Connect was an important mutual access arrangement for both the mainland and Hong Kong.
“The expansion of daily quota [sic] will further enhance the smoothness and certainty of trading and help ensure that the process for the inclusion of A-shares in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index this year is orderly,” Chan said.
London calling
The increase comes at the same time as People’s Bank of China governor Yi Gang confirmed plans to create a Stock Connect between Shanghai and London this year.
International Adviser reported two years ago that a deal was expected to be signed.
While details have not been revealed, the former chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, Xavier Rolet, said to local newspaper South China Morning Post that the link to London “would be completely different from the Stock Connect between Hong Kong and Shanghai”.
The system would be a “new concept” that would allow investors in China to trade stocks listed in London outside of UK trading hours.
