China to buy 2% of Hong Kong market to boost Hong Kong’s growth

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Wednesday said it will buy two per cent of the Singapore-listed Singapore S&P Global Plc’s Hong Kong stock for an initial capital of about $4 billion, adding to the $12 billion that investors have been pouring into the island’s shares since last November.

China has long been a major investor in Hong Kong, and the two countries’ economies have been in a long-term economic alliance since the handover from British colonial rule in 1997.

But the two nations have had to contend with a string of political and financial troubles in recent years, with the mainland increasingly assertive in the region and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSE) increasingly under Chinese rule.

A Hong Kong official said the two companies will be set up in an initial public offering (IPO) next year and that the Hongkongers would receive 50 per cent in return for the company’s shares.

The Singapore stock is one of the biggest investors in Hongkongs stock market, with more than $6 trillion in market value.

The Hongkowlongers have said they will use the money to improve education in their city.

Hong Kong’s market is one the most important markets for Singapore and the mainland, as it is the most expensive in the world to invest.

Its share prices have surged in recent months.

The Hongkoo Stock Exchange said the initial public offer (IPOs) will be held on March 11 and the closing date will be announced in two to three weeks.

Hongkong’s central government said it would buy up to 20 per cent, with other mainland shareholders paying for up to 40 per cent.

The market is set to have a turnover of about US$9.2 billion, and its average annual growth rate has been 2.2 per cent to 2.7 per cent since the start of 2017, according to data from Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.