HK to further connect with mainland China

TO strengthen its position as the world's largest offshore yuan business centre, Hong Kong has tabled financial initiatives to further connect with mainland China.

Top among them are the scrapping of the stamp duty for the trading of all the city's listed exchange traded funds (ETF) and the mutual recognition with China of each other's fund products.

Hong Kong's financial secretary John Tsang proposed the initiatives yesterday in his annual budget speech. He said that waiving the stamp duty for the trading of all ETFs will help lower the trading cost of ETFs with a higher percentage of Hong Kong stocks in their portfolios.

In 2010, he extended the stamp duty concession to cover those that track indices comprising no more than 40 per cent of Hong Kong stocks. Since then, the number of ETFs listed in Hong Kong has nearly doubled to 116 at the end of last year, up from 69 three years ago, with daily average turn…