Hong Kong’s stock market chief predicted yesterday that Chinese investors would one day be able to take part in yuan-denominated initial public offerings (IPOs) following further moves by Chinese regulators aimed at promoting the city as a yuan hub.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing chief executive Charles Li (李小加) said that letting Chinese invest in a stock offering at the same time as other investors would eliminate the risk of a price bubble and that it was the most “politically feasible” method.
A Chinese regulatory official said earlier this week that the country would loosen restrictions to encourage Chinese companies to list in Hong Kong.
Chinese investors are currently restricted to so-called “A-shares” traded on the country’s domestic markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Otherwise, they have few opportunities to invest their cash.
A plan in 2007 to allow Chinese to invest directly in Hong Kong’s stock market sent the benchmark Hang Seng Index to a record high as Hong Kong investors anticipated a wave of pent-up cash flowing in from China, but the plan was later shelved.
Li said that by allowing Chinese investors to participate in an IPO or secondary share placement, “they’re not going to suffer because the stock has already been bid up by people waiting for them to come.”
Letting Chinese invest in stocks denominated in the yuan would also eliminate any exchange rate risks, he added.
Li gave few details or a time frame for his predictions, which he said would be the likely natural outcome of measures to ease restrictions on listings by Chinese companies in Hong Kong announced this week by China Securities Regulatory Commission vice chairman Yao Gang (姚剛).
Beijing is promoting use of the yuan, as well as Hong Kong’s role as an offshore yuan trading hub. In April, Hong Kong held the first yuan-denominated IPO outside of China, a US$1.6 billion offering for Hui Xian Real Estate Investment Trust (匯賢房地產投資信託基金).
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
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Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day