HONG KONG, Aug 29 — Hong Kong’s government said today that it had set up a task force to “enhance” stock market liquidity in order to strengthen the city’s competitiveness and the development of its capital market in the short, medium and long term.
The task force will be chaired by Carlson Tong, the former chairman of Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission as well as eight other members from the financial services sector, regulators, government officials and representatives from the city’s stock exchange. The task force will “review internal and external factors affecting market liquidity, including the listing regime, market structure and trading mechanism” and make recommendations to promote Hong Kong’s stock market to issuers and investors, the government said in a statement.
“We need to stay close to market changes and needs, and seek to strengthen Hong Kong’s competitiveness and speed up our development...as well as taking forward measures in the short, medium and long term,” Finance Secretary Paul Chan said in the statement.China halved the stamp duty on stock trading effective yesterday in the latest attempt to boost the struggling market as a recovery sputters in the world’s second-biggest economy.
The finance ministry said in a brief statement on Sunday it was reducing the 0.1 per cent duty on stock trades “in order to invigorate the capital market and boost investor confidence”. — Reuters