Int'l recognition of China's bond market improving significantly: financial sector

HONG KONG, July 10 (Xinhua) -- A summit was held in Hong Kong on Tuesday to mark the 7th anniversary of Bond Connect which links the mainland and Hong Kong bond markets.

Participants of the summit held by Bond Connect Company Limited (BCCL) believed that the international recognition of China's bond market was significantly improving.

Launched in 2017, Bond Connect grants overseas investors easier access to the enormous market of the Chinese mainland.

Zhang Yi, Chairperson of BCCL, said that Bond Connect has pioneered the development of the financial market under multiple constraints, withstood the test of the market with impressive data, and was welcomed and recognized by institutional investors.

Paul Chan, Financial Secretary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government, said that Bond Connect is the main channel for overseas investors to allocate mainland assets. Last year, the total transaction volume of international investors' investment in mainland bond market exceeded 15 trillion Chinese yuan (2.06 trillion U.S. dollars), two-thirds of which were conducted through Bond Connect.

Chan said that in the future, Hong Kong will continue to make good use of its own advantages, seize national development opportunities, continuously optimize interconnection content, and better gather mainland and global capital and investors.

Jiang Huifen, Deputy Director-General of the Financial Market Department of the People's Bank of China, said in a video speech that in recent years, the increasing connectivity between the mainland and Hong Kong has injected vitality into the development of China's financial opening-up. The People's Bank of China will continue to strengthen pragmatic collaboration with Hong Kong, and support Hong Kong's development as an international financial center to a higher level with greater determination.

Eddie Yue, Chief Executive of Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), said that in the past few years, the global financial market has become more and more volatile, but the willingness of international investors to invest in RMB assets has not decreased and even increased.

The Southbound Bond Connect is an important driving force behind the development of the offshore RMB bond market in Hong Kong, attracting many domestic and overseas enterprises and financial institutions to issue dim sum bonds in Hong Kong. The total amount of RMB bonds issued in Hong Kong last year was 540 billion yuan, an increase of 3.5 times over 2020, Yue added. (1 U.S. dollar = 7.29 Chinese yuan)