China move prompts HK traders to seek link fixes

Hong Kong

TRADERS are lobbying Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd (HKEX) for changes to the cross-border stock links with mainland China ahead of the country's shares joining key MSCI Inc benchmarks.

Chinese-listed companies will be added to gauges including the MSCI Emerging Markets Index in June, a move that could spur as much as US$17 billion of flows into the world's second biggest equity market. But traders in Hong Kong said that the two stock connects, which link HKEX with bourses in Shanghai and Shenzhen, may struggle unless certain issues - including daily trading limits and details of an incoming investor identity system - are addressed.

The trading links are a centrepiece of mainland authorities' efforts to open their market to overseas investors, so much so that MSCI's list of companies to be add…