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Exclusive | Hong Kong a ‘critical bridge’ as global investors ‘rediscover’ China, Morgan Stanley says

City’s capital market lets innovative Chinese companies ‘position longer-term value propositions to the global investor base’, banker says

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Shane Zhang, head of Asia-Pacific investment banking at Morgan Stanley. Illustration: Lau Ka-kuen
Aileen Chuang
In the Capital Connectors series, exclusive interviews with six influential Chinese and global bankers reveal the opportunities and challenges for Hong Kong in its evolution as an international financial hub.

Global investors, including US funds with long-only strategies, are returning to the Chinese mainland to reassess local companies, a shift that has helped drive a twofold surge in liquidity in Hong Kong’s stock market while highlighting the city’s ability to connect global investors to China’s growing innovative powers.

Shane Zhang, head of Asia-Pacific investment banking at Morgan Stanley, said his firm had arranged meetings in China for a number of senior US long-only investors in the last few months, giving them a chance to “rediscover that sense of innovation and their broader impact”.

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“This is a good starting point for global investors with longer-term investment horizons to rebuild their exposure in Chinese companies,” he said.

Hong Kong’s stock benchmark is near a four-year high after rising more than 30 per cent from a low in April at the peak of US-China tariff tensions. Optimism about China’s breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, spurred by the DeepSeek moment earlier this year, and government efforts to revive growth have fuelled the rally.
Screens show stock prices outside Exchange Square in Central on February 15, 2024. Photo: Sun Yeung
Screens show stock prices outside Exchange Square in Central on February 15, 2024. Photo: Sun Yeung

Daily trading volume on the city’s bourse averaged about US$31.9 billion in the first eight months of this year, more than doubling from a year earlier, according to exchange data.

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