SPB Exchange to allow trading of another 100 Hong Kong-listed securities by year's end

MOSCOW. Aug 4 (Interfax) - SPB Exchange plans to increase the number of traded securities with listings on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange by about 100 by the end of this year, the Russian exchange's CEO, Roman Goryunov said.

"We will expand ETFs, since we see demand. Plus, we will continue the expansion of Hong Kong securities, as we promised," Goryunov said on BCS Live

He said Hong Kong securities are currently not nearly as liquid as U.S. securities. "But there are objective reasons, because economically it is quite a costly affair to trade Hong Kong securities due to the existence of the stamp duty. By the way, unlike trading actual shares, for ETFs there is no stamp duty and, accordingly, the cost of transactions is far lower than for actual shares," Goryunov said.

"We will, naturally, expand the list, accumulate liquidity gradually. We're planning [to add] about another 100 [securities by the end of the year]," he said.

The exchange is also considering launching trading of Turkish stocks, he said. Asked about the possibility of Iranian securities being traded on the SPB Exchange, Goryunov said there are no such plans at the moment.

The SPB Exchange also does not plan to list its shares on foreign exchanges. "In general, nonresidents' work with Russian assets is currently difficult, to put it mildly, so we don't see any particular point in an offering on foreign exchanges right now," Goryunov said.

Goryunov said in December 2022 that the exchange planned to increase the number of traded Hong Kong-listed shares to 500 by the end of 2023. There are currently 115 such shares traded on the exchange. In July the exchange also launched trading of eight ETFs with primary listings in Hong Kong that are available to unqualified investors.