HONG KONG - A new index focused on China's technology giants is set to give investors greater access to their growing dominance in Hong Kong's market.
The move comes at a time when further listings of Chinese technology firms are in the pipeline, such as Jack Ma's Ant Group, following those of NetEase and JD.com. Listing closer to home has become more attractive as tensions between Washington and Beijing threaten to curtail Chinese companies' access to US capital markets.
"There are too many laggards in the Hang Seng Index," said Castor Pang, head of research at Core Pacific-Yamaichi International Hong Kong."With overseas-listed Chinese firms deciding to list closer-to-home, the Hong Kong market falls short in terms of having a representative index for these stocks. This new index serves to fill this gap and drive capital flows."
Supported by strong mainland inflows through stock connect links, Chinese technology shares have emerged as big winners in Hong Kong this year. Tencent has surged 41 per cent while Meituan is up 87 per cent.