BROKERS are still waiting to find out when the link between Hong Kong and Shanghai’s stock exchanges will begin as a six-month deadline runs out.

    There is no timetable for the program, Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. chief executive officer Charles Li said Friday. Last month, he said the link may begin on a Monday in October, which would leave Oct. 27 as the last start date.

    When Premier Li Keqiang unexpectedly announced the plan to connect the two exchanges in an April 10 speech, regulators said the link would begin in six months. The lack of a definitive commencement is raising questions over the readiness of regulators and brokers for the program, which will give overseas investors unprecedented access to Chinese mainland shares.

    “Brokerages are left hanging without clarification when this is going to start,” said Mari Oshidari, a strategist at Okasan Securities Group Inc. in Hong Kong. “The impact on the market may not be much now, but if it drags on like this, then we may start to see equity markets sliding lower.”

    Connecting markets with different trading rules, regulators, currencies, taxes and holidays has occupied brokers since the link was unveiled in April. Exchange officials and traders in Hong Kong and Shanghai have spent weekends testing systems, clearing and settlement in readiness for the start, including a full trial in August.

    “We don’t have a timetable,” Li told reporters Friday. “Whether it’s announced today, tomorrow, the day after, two days after, or any other day, it is not important which day it is going to be announced, people shouldn’t read too much into the timing of it. The main issue is that we are prepared for the starting gun.” Li added that any announcement of the start date won’t be made “unilaterally” by a regulator.

    “Undoubtedly, this means a delay, but for how long, that will now be the biggest question,” Andy Maynard, global head of trading and execution at CLSA Ltd., said in Hong Kong on Friday. (SD-Agencies)