Hong Kong and Chinese stock markets recovered some lost ground in morning trading on Thursday as Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying assured the public that Hong Kong has a sound financial system to deal with market fluctuations. The Hang Seng Index closed the morning session at 24,322.23, gaining 805.67 points, or 3.43%.
Speaking at the Legislative Council in the morning, Leung said that Hong Kong can provide expertise and technology to mainland authorities to help them improve the financial markets in China.
“Our whole monitoring system, including relevant regulations, policies and daily measures, are all fairly sound. Market slumps in the past few days -although we don’t want to see fluctuations – prove that Hong Kong’s financial market… passed the test.”
Mainland markets also returned to positive territory after opening lower. The Shanghai Composite Index rose 45.58 points, or 1.3%, to 3,552.78 at 11:35am. The Shenzhen Component Index gained 351.85 points, or 3.19%, to 11,392.74.
American investor and co-founder of the Quantum Fund Jim Rogers said on Fox Business on Wednesday he is still bullish about the Chinese market despite the recent panic selling.
“There is going to be setbacks in China along the way, no question. America had many setbacks as we rose to power and glory and China will too,” Rogers said.
However, Rogers was not optimistic about the effect of measures taken by the Chinese government to keep markets up. “If any government is trying to prop up a market, it’s making a mistake,” Rogers said, “just let the market go ahead and clean itself out.”
