CHINA will expand the trading quota and number of shares investors can trade on the Hong Kong-Shanghai stock connect program, a securities regulator official said Tuesday.

    The regulator will also continue to push forward with the proposed Hong Kong-Shenzhen stock connect program, said Fang Xinghai, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), according to a statement on the watchdog’s website.

    Fang’s comments, made on the one-year anniversary of the stock connect program, reiterate previous plans to expand the program’s scope once it had matured.

    The program was originally anticipated to attract mass foreign fund flows into Chinese stocks. But it has so far struggled to fill its current quotas.

    An expansion is being planned even though the northbound quota into Shanghai is at 40 percent of its limit, while the southbound quota is at 37 percent.

    But that plan, including expanding the stock connect program to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, stalled after the mainland stock market dropped sharply between June and August and the government intervened through a range of measures to stop the plunge.

    Global banks and investors have also warned Chinese regulators that proposals to curb high-speed trading, blamed for China’s summer stock market crash, would inadvertently sabotage major investment channels worth around US$160 billion, including the stock connect program. (SD-Agencies)