On February 20, 2026 (the 4th day of the Lunar New Year), the first trading day of the Year of the Horse, the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) held its annual Lunar New Year opening ceremony. HKEX Chairman Tang Jiacheng and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Chan Yiting delivered speeches sequentially. During their addresses, they not only released the latest data on the current Hong Kong stock IPO market, but also laid out key strategic plans for HKEX in optimizing listing regulations, enhancing market liquidity, expanding business footprint and other areas in the Year of the Horse. They emphasized that the IPO review process will adhere to high standards, and the bourse is committed to building a more competitive high-quality financial market. In his opening speech for the Lunar New Year, HKEX Chairman Tang Jiacheng disclosed that since the start of 2026, 24 new listings have been completed on the Hong Kong stock market, raising total proceeds of over HK$87 billion. Currently, 488 companies are still in the IPO listing queue, and the momentum of new share issuance continues to pick up. On the IPO review issue that has drawn market attention, Tang Jiacheng made it clear that while the number of new listings is steadily growing, HKEX’s review process will never be lax. The bourse will always apply strict standards to ensure that Hong Kong maintains its internationally recognized high-quality capital market status. Meanwhile, the liquidity of the Hong Kong stock market has seen remarkable improvement. Data shows that the average daily trading turnover of the Hong Kong stock market in 2025 hit a historical high of nearly HK$250 billion, and the figure further surpassed HK$278 billion in January 2026. The trading turnover on some recent trading days even exceeded HK$300 billion, fully proving that various measures previously launched by HKEX to boost stock market liquidity have yielded notable results. Tang Jiacheng added that HKEX will coordinate with newly launched financial products to continue creating more market opportunities for market participants and investors. As for the key work plans for the Year of the Horse, Tang Jiacheng laid out clear guidelines: This year, HKEX will fully advance a number of core initiatives, including officially releasing consultation documents on optimizing the listing system and the T+1 trading system; it plans to roll out relevant measures for the second phase of narrowing the bid-ask spread in the middle of the year. Going forward, HKEX will continue to collaborate closely with all industry stakeholders to continuously promote market quality and efficiency upgrades, and strengthen the overall competitiveness of Hong Kong’s capital market. HKEX CEO Chan Yiting noted in her speech that over the past few years, the international community’s attention to the Asian market has risen significantly. When HKEX participates in various international events such as the World Economic Forum (Davos Forum), its reception has grown increasingly favorable. Behind this trend is that global investors are actively pursuing diversified asset allocation and are eager to tap into investment opportunities in Hong Kong, the Chinese mainland and the entire Asian region. In response, HKEX will continue to leverage various international exchange platforms to actively tell the Hong Kong story and share the value and opportunities of Hong Kong’s capital market with the global audience. In terms of market structure, the industrial coverage of the Hong Kong stock market has continued to expand. In recent years, companies listed in Hong Kong have fully covered global high-growth sectors including new energy, artificial intelligence (AI), electric vehicles and biotechnology, and cover enterprises across the upper, middle and lower reaches of various industrial value chains. Chan Yiting described that the current "shelf" of the Hong Kong stock market is stocked with a wide range of securities products to meet the diversified allocation needs of investors. HKEX will continue to launch more innovative derivative products in the future to further enrich the market’s product ecosystem. Apart from continuously optimizing the stock market, HKEX is also targeting a broader blue ocean market. Chan Yiting stated that international investors’ asset allocation needs are no longer limited to equities, but cover a full range of assets including bonds, currencies and commodities. In this regard, HKEX is actively expanding its fixed income, currency and commodity (FICC) businesses, which it regards as a key blue ocean track for Hong Kong’s capital market. HKEX’s goal is to drive the development of its FICC business to match the scale and maturity of its stock market, and build a complete industrial ecosystem covering product design, trading and circulation, settlement and clearing, as well as data and information services. The bourse aims to continuously expand market scale, create more growth opportunities for the long-term development of Hong Kong’s financial market, and further consolidate Hong Kong’s core status as an international financial center. © 2021 Meishun (Hong Kong) Management Consulting Co., Ltd. and Meishun (Hangzhou) Management Consulting Co., Ltd. All rights reserved. Meishun Meiyin (Hangzhou) Consulting Management Co., Ltd. is the domestic subsidiary of Hong Kong Meishun Management Consulting Co., Ltd. under the same ultimate controlling shareholder. Both companies are under the same actual control and operate under the framework of One China. The companies comply with the laws of Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland.