Chen Yiting: Looking ahead to 2026, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange is processing more than 300 listing applications

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Hong Kong Stock Exchange (00388) CEO Chen Yiting published a blog post saying that the “DeepSeek Moment” in January 2025 not only highlights China's strength in the field of cutting-edge technology, but also reminds the world that the growth model of China, the world's second-largest economy, is shifting from being driven by traditional manufacturing to being driven by high added value and innovative industries. Since this year, enterprises from all walks of life in the mainland have used the HKEx's financing platform to speed up their overseas strategies, which also more clearly confirms this trend.

Since 2025, the Hong Kong IPO market has welcomed more than 100 listed companies (including the world's two largest IPOs this year), and the total amount raised has exceeded HK$270 billion. Looking ahead to 2026, the Listing Division is currently processing listing applications for more than 300 companies.

Chen Yiting added that the market is always cyclical and difficult to predict, but we are convinced that the long-term prospects of the Asian market are improving. Asia's economic growth will continue to drive the continuous development of regional financial markets, unleash opportunities within the region, and attract global capital. The Asian financial market has the potential to become the world's largest capital market. For the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, this is a huge opportunity for Hong Kong to become the center of the global financial market.

Additionally, we will continue to expand our source of listed companies. This year, as mainland enterprises speed up overseas, mainland enterprises listed in Hong Kong are becoming more and more international. Half of the mainland companies listed in Hong Kong have a significant proportion of their business revenue from overseas. Furthermore, HKEx has welcomed a number of companies from Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Singapore, Thailand and the UAE to go public this year. In the future, we will continue to use this balance to attract more international companies (especially companies from other parts of Asia) to go public and help global investors share Asia's growth opportunities.

The original text is as follows:

CEO Blog: Writing a New Chapter in Connectivity

Chen Yiting

What does the strong rebound in 2025 mean for the future of the Hong Kong market? Since this year, we have often been asked this question when being interviewed by the media and attending forums and conferences around the world. This year has indeed been an extremely busy year for the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Major IPOs are pouring in, and transactions in multiple markets have reached new highs, but what people are more concerned about is what will happen next?

If you want to know the future, you must look to the past. Looking back at the market performance over the past year, I think there are two main driving forces behind it.

Two core driving forces

First, the global trend of diversified capital allocation is a major driving force. As macro-uncertainty persists, the pattern of global capital allocation is changing, and a new balance has yet to be established. Over the past few years, driven by technology, global capital has continued to be concentrated in a few markets and stocks. Today, as global investors gradually adapt to a multipolar world, they are seeking diversified growth and risk management opportunities around the world. This is actually a healthier pattern, because the essence of the capital market is to connect capital with opportunity.

As an international financial center connecting the world, the Hong Kong market was the first to feel this change in investor behavior. Since the end of 2024, global investors have discovered diversified asset allocation opportunities in Asia, particularly in the Hong Kong market. The 20 most active trading days in the Hong Kong stock market all occurred after September 2024.

At the same time, there is another impetus — a shift in China's economic development model is attracting capital inflows. The “DeepSeek Moment” of January 2025 not only highlights China's strength in the field of cutting-edge technology, but also reminds the world that the growth model of China, the world's second-largest economy, is shifting from being driven by traditional manufacturing to being driven by high added value and innovative industries. Since this year, enterprises from all walks of life in the mainland have used the HKEx's financing platform to speed up their overseas strategies, which also more clearly confirms this trend.

Since 2025, the Hong Kong IPO market has welcomed more than 100 listed companies (including the world's two largest IPOs this year), and the total amount raised has exceeded HK$270 billion. Looking ahead to 2026, the Listing Division is currently processing listing applications for more than 300 companies.

Asia continues to attract global attention

In our view, these two major trends are actually an extension of a theme from the past few decades, which is that Asia is constantly moving towards the center of the world economic scene. Asia is the most populous continent in the world. Since 1990, Asia's contribution to global GDP has almost doubled. Asia is also the biggest contributor to global merchandise trade. Asia attracts around 40% of global foreign direct investment. Asia has 55% of the world's listed companies, and their market capitalization accounts for 27% of the total global stock market value.

As the long-term megatrend of Asia's economic rise continues to unfold, everything from global supply chains to technology clusters is shifting eastward. It is natural for global investors to set their sights on Asia, and a new generation of Asian entrepreneurs is constantly creating new opportunities.

What does the Hong Kong market look like in the future?

After reviewing these major trends, let's go back to the question we started with: How will the Hong Kong market go in the future?

The market is always cyclical and difficult to predict, but we are convinced that the long-term prospects for the Asian market are positive. Asia's economic growth will continue to drive the continuous development of regional financial markets, unleash opportunities within the region, and attract global capital. The Asian financial market has the potential to become the world's largest capital market. For the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, this is a huge opportunity for Hong Kong to become the center of the global financial market.

In this regard, we already have many advantages: a unique interconnection mechanism with the mainland capital market, a highly open, liquid and diversified market, and a determination to continue to innovate. Of course, Hong Kong will need to invest a lot of resources and effort to become the core of the global financial market, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and definitely not to be missed.

How to seize opportunities

So, how can we seize this rare opportunity for the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the market, and Hong Kong?

Over the past ten years, we have focused on establishing and optimizing interconnection mechanisms with mainland China's capital markets. From Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect, Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect, Bond Connect, and swap to the increasingly rich offshore RMB product ecosystem, our unique connectivity mechanism with the Mainland has attracted global liquidity and diversified investors, enhanced market vitality, supported the mainland's economic development, and strengthened Hong Kong's position as a global superconnector.

Connectivity with the mainland market is the biggest advantage of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange compared to other international exchanges. Therefore, in the future, we must continue to consolidate this advantage, continuously optimize connectivity with the mainland, and promote the further opening up of China's capital market and the internationalization of the RMB.

At the same time, in the next ten years, we will also promote the interconnection of opportunities between other Asian markets and China. By enhancing our platform and regional cooperation, we hope to use our Chinese strengths to connect Asian capital with today's greatest opportunities and create a globally attractive regional liquidity pool: bring exciting Asian opportunities (such as the Southeast Asian market) to mainland investors; and attract more Asian investors to invest in the mainland capital market.

This strategy is based on our existing advantages in China, and also revolves around three strategic priorities:

Improving the multi-asset ecosystem

The first strategy focuses on expanding and improving the multi-asset ecosystem and laying out the products and tools needed by investors in the process of reshaping the global capital allocation pattern in advance. For example, in recent years, we have built a rich product ecosystem around the stock market, and have continuously developed complementary derivatives businesses to meet the changing needs of global investors. Therefore, at the end of 2024, when the global eye refocuses on the Hong Kong market, we will be able to attract a large amount of capital, because we have prepared rich trading and risk management tools for international investors to seize China's opportunities in advance.

Where should our multi-asset strategy go next? We will explore the launch of more products suitable for Asian clients (especially retail investors and professional retail investors). In the long run, there is also huge room for growth in the fixed income and currency sectors. We have already begun planning this year and made strategic investments in expedited settlement, but there is still a lot of work to be done. On the commodities side, we will work with all parties in the market to build Hong Kong into an Asian commodity hub to meet growing demand.

Additionally, we will continue to expand our source of listed companies. This year, as mainland enterprises speed up overseas, mainland enterprises listed in Hong Kong are becoming more and more international. Half of the mainland companies listed in Hong Kong have a significant proportion of their business revenue from overseas. Furthermore, HKEx has welcomed a number of companies from Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Singapore, Thailand and the UAE to go public this year. In the future, we will continue to use this balance to attract more international companies (especially companies from other parts of Asia) to go public and help global investors share Asia's growth opportunities.

Laying out the future in terms of technology and operations

Our second strategic focus is to continue to lay out the future in technology and operations. It is not enough to simply connect Asian investors to growth opportunities in China, or international investors to growth opportunities in Asia. We must continuously improve our market structure and platform to ensure that investors can invest, trade, and manage risk as easily as possible here.

In recent years, we have made many efforts and made some progress in this area, including independently developing the Pioneer Star spot trading platform, implementing arrangements to maintain normal trading in bad weather, narrowing trading spreads, and optimizing the IPO pricing mechanism. These efforts have helped us increase market liquidity over the past year and attract many high-quality issuers and investors.

As demand for Asian assets increases, we will continue to work with industry partners to optimize market infrastructure, and there is still much work to be done in this area in the future. Our upcoming work includes conducting market consultations on reforming the settlement cycle of the Hong Kong securities market, implementing paperless securities market measures, reviewing the listing system, upgrading derivatives trading platforms, and using emerging technologies such as AI in operations.

Develop new businesses

Our third major strategy focuses on developing emerging businesses, including data, analytics, indices, digital currencies, and tokenization. We hope these emerging businesses can support our core business, accelerate capital flows and enhance market liquidity, particularly connecting global capital with Asian opportunities.

Last week, we launched the HKEx Technology 100 Index. We will also explore the launch of more index products in the future to provide a comprehensive and convenient tool for global investors to invest in Asian assets. The introduction of more index benchmarks (including thematic indices) will not only bring richer product choices to the market, but will also further promote the development of the derivatives and ETF ecosystem.

Looking to the future

In 2025, despite increased macroeconomic fluctuations, the Hong Kong market still set a number of new records. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange has also launched a series of new products and far-reaching market structural reforms. In the next 2026 and beyond, we will continue to forge ahead and vigorously advance various strategies.

We can't influence the macro environment. However, no matter how the macro environment evolves, as a key financial market infrastructure, we have always shouldered the mission of providing a platform for fair competition for global market participants and efficiently connecting capital and opportunity. The current trend that is reshaping the world and Asia provides a rare opportunity to further strengthen Hong Kong's position as an international financial center. We feel that we have a heavier responsibility than before. We must make greater efforts than before to promote Asian capital flows and provide more connectivity to the new pattern of global capital markets. In the next few weeks, our management team will share the progress of various strategies through the “Market News” series of short videos, so stay tuned.

Finally, I would like to thank all market participants in Hong Kong, Mainland China and the world for their support over the past year. Every strategic initiative we launch is inseparable from everyone's valuable opinions. Our past achievements belong to all market participants, and our future vision also requires everyone's participation.

The Christmas holidays and New Year's Day holidays are coming soon, I wish everyone a happy holiday! In 2026, let's meet new challenges with more energy!