On an afternoon in December 2012, Charles Li Xiaojia, the CEO of Hong Kong’s stock exchange operator, sat with Shanghai bourse chairman Gui Minjie in a Shenzhen teahouse. During their discussion, which lasted less than an hour, they scribbled down plans to link Asia’s two largest stock markets – on the corner of a tablecloth.
What started on that teahouse tablecloth has become a conduit through which international investors can access China’s US$10 trillion onshore stock market, while their counterparts on the mainland can diversify their portfolios by trading Hong Kong-listed equities.
Since the floodgates opened 10 years ago, overseas investors using the Stock Connect programme – which brought Shenzhen into the fold in 2016 – have bought a net of 1.8 trillion yuan (US$249.2 billion) worth of Chinese stocks, while mainland buying of Hong Kong shares has totalled HK$3.4 trillion (US$437.2 billion), according to Hong Kong…
