Hong Kong Treasury Bureau: About 69 new stocks have been listed in the first 9 months of this year, and will continue to promote more overseas issuers to go public in Hong Kong.

On October 6, the Permanent Secretary (Financial Services) of the Hong Kong Treasury Bureau, Elizabeth Tse, stated at a legislative council meeting that the average daily turnover of Hong Kong stocks in the first 9 months of this year increased by 1.26 times compared to the same period last year, with about 69 new stocks listed in the first 9 months. The government will continue to work with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to attract more overseas issuers to list in Hong Kong, including those from ASEAN and Middle Eastern countries. They will also continue to promote Mainland Chinese companies to list in Hong Kong. She emphasized that while simplifying and easing requirements, the system must be robust and of high quality, and specific proposals will be consulted with the industry. Tse mentioned that the Hong Kong government's policy address focused a lot on capital market reform, including actively proposing improvements to the main board listing mechanism with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Securities and Futures Commission. They will also review the requirements for secondary and dual listings to optimize and adapt to current developments. Additionally, although weighted voting rights have been introduced for some time, she believes there is still room for further improvement, including reviewing whether there is room to optimize market cap and whether there is room to relax the current regulations around listing criteria for companies like ShenZhen New Industries Biomedical Engineering. The capital market has become a strong financing platform for new economy companies, and the government also wants to attract a variety of different companies to list in Hong Kong. Regarding the issue of public shareholding in listed companies, Hong Kong Treasury Bureau Director Vincent Xu stated that the current requirement for public shareholding in listed companies is at least 25%. The core function of the capital market is price discovery, and there is a need to maintain a certain level of depth and breadth of public ownership. Currently, large companies listing in Hong Kong may be exempt based on factors such as the amount raised during the IPO and past approval practices, though there are no explicit rules regarding the size of the market cap level required, the market is aware of such practices.