Hong Kong launches new measures to attract more tech, bio listings
May 6 (Reuters) - Hong Kong launched a scheme on Tuesday to offer smoother listings for tech companies on its stock exchange, as it looks to capitalize on Chinese companies' growing appetite to raise funds offshore.
The new "technology enterprises channel" will make new listings easier for specialist technology and biotechnology firms, the bourse operator and Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission said in a joint statement.
Under the scheme, the exchange, a unit of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, (0388.HK), opens new tab will provide guidance on the eligibility and suitability for listing for prospective companies.
Applicants can confidentially file for initial public offerings, as disclosures of their operational strategies may pose heightened risk compared to other industries, the statement said.
It also allows tech firms to list with a weighted voting rights (WVR) structure, which allows companies to hold shares that carry extra voting rights, provided they meet certain requirements.
Hong Kong is the main destination for mainland Chinese firms looking to raise capital offshore, and bankers have said that mainland firms, mainly those in the tech sector, are accelerating plans to raise money offshore.
Hong Kong authorities had first announced the technology enterprises channel in February.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
9 hours ago
- Telegraph
The West must rediscover its ruthless streak in business
The competition is brutal. Lots of companies are getting eliminated. And even the biggest players are struggling to make any money. It might sound like a description of a ruthlessly capitalist economy. But in fact, it is a pretty accurate summary of China's booming electric vehicle (EV) industry. In truth, the UK, along with the rest of the struggling developed economies, should learn a lesson from an unlikely place. What China shows us is that competition is what drives economic growth, and picking 'national champions' and propping up failing industries only destroys it. Sure, in almost every other respect we would not want to be run like China – but the West needs to rediscover its ruthless streak, because that is what works. The Chinese EV industry is the most intensely competitive market in the world. We may only be familiar with a handful of the big names such as BYD in this country, but there are now an estimated 130 different brands fighting it out for every sale in China. With a mixture of regional players and companies moving into the market from other industries – such as the phone manufacturer Xiaomi – China has more domestic carmakers than anywhere else in the world. The result? EVs are very cheap in China, with popular models such as BYD's Seagull selling for just 58,000 yuan (£6,000), an incredibly low price for a well-made new car. The overall market has boomed, with more than six million EVs sold last year. And it is characterised by rapid innovation, with companies constantly adding new features, and making huge breakthroughs in battery technology, such as BYD's five-minute charger. Lots of people are still kidding themselves that Chinese EVs are taking a larger and larger share of the Western market because they are being 'dumped' by the state. Actually it is because they make good cars at very competitive prices, and, not very surprisingly, customers like that. True, the Chinese government may be worried that the market is getting out of control. Last week, it issued a warning to 16 of the biggest companies, including BYD, Nio and SAIC (which owns the British brand MG) not to let price competition become so ferocious that they all end up destroying each other. No one really thinks that 100-plus car companies will survive, or that it would be healthy for them to do so. Plenty of them will go bust, and many more will be steered into mergers by government officials before they drown in red ink. Three or four giant conglomerates will emerge, much as they did in the emerging auto industries in the United States and Europe a hundred years ago. The important point, however, is this. China is allowing a Darwinian struggle for survival to decide who will be the winners and losers. We see that most dramatically in the emerging auto industry, which has emerged from nowhere to take on the giants of Japan, the US and Europe in little more than a decade. And yet we see much the same process in phone manufacturing where dozens of brands such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo have emerged in a very short space of time; in airlines, where there are now dozens of domestic carriers, and the likes of China Eastern are emerging as major international players; or in televisions, where brands such as Hisense and Skyworth dominate the industry. The list goes on. At the macro level, China may be dominated by top-down state planning, with soft loans dished out to favoured entrepreneurs, and targets set for chosen industries. But at the micro level, it is also characterised by intense competition, with companies slugging it out ferociously for every sale. Sure, it will be a messy and ugly process. But we can be sure of one thing. The handful of auto companies that survive will be making great cars at rock bottom prices, and will be virtually impossible to compete with. The same will be true for phones, or consumer electronics, or almost any other industry. China may be notionally a Communist state. But it also believes that competition is what gets results. The contrast with the West is painful. Our political and industrial leaders are obsessed with endless rounds of consolidation, with creating 'national champions' and with forging partnerships with the government to 'pick the winners' in the 'industries of the future'. And we are spending more time and money on propping up declining industries, such as the recently renationalised British Steel, than we are on creating new industries. But with the sole exception of Airbus, just about every national champion that has been created in Europe over the past 50 years has turned into an expensive failure, while the record in the US since Joe Biden, the then president, launched his massively expensive programme of industrial subsidies is unlikely to prove any better. In almost every respect, we would not want to be like China. We would not want to copy its dominant one-party state; nor its lack of democracy; nor is mass surveillance of the population; nor its appalling record on human rights. And yet it does get one big thing right. As its booming, yet also brutally competitive EV industry has shown, it also believes in competition, and in forcing companies to compete for every sale. It is the only way to make sure that better products are made at a lower price, and in the end that is what succeeds. The West knew that 100 years ago, but has largely forgotten it since then. In reality, if the UK, the rest of Europe and the US are to have any chance of standing up to the growing economic might of China we need to rediscover the streak of ruthlessness that drives business. If we don't, EVs will just be the start – and we will keep on losing the lead in more major industries.
The Guardian
9 hours ago
- The Guardian
Trump's plan to ban US states from AI regulation will ‘hold us back', says Microsoft science chief
Microsoft's chief scientist has warned that Donald Trump's proposed ban on state-level guardrails on artificial intelligence will slow the development of the frontier technology rather than accelerate it. Dr Eric Horvitz, a former technology adviser to Joe Biden, said bans on regulation will 'hold us back' and 'could be at odds with making good progress on not just advancing the science, but in translating it into practice'. The Trump administration has proposed a 10-year ban on US states creating 'any law or regulation limiting, restricting, or otherwise regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems'. It is driven in part by White House fears China could otherwise win the race to human-level AI, but also pressure from tech investors, such as Andreessen Horowitz, an early investor in Facebook, which argues consumer uses should be regulated rather than research efforts. Its co-founder, the Trump donor Marc Andreessen, said earlier this month that the US was in a two horse race for AI supremacy with China. The US vice-president, JD Vance, recently said: 'If we take a pause, does [China] not take a pause? Then we find ourselves … enslaved to [China]-mediated AI.' Horvitz said he was already concerned about 'AI being leveraged for misinformation and inappropriate persuasion' and for its use 'for malevolent activities, for example, in the biology biological hazard space'. Horvitz's pro-regulation comments came despite reports that Microsoft is part of a Silicon Valley lobbying push with Google, Meta and Amazon, to support the ban on individual US states regulating AI for the next decade which is included in Trump's budget bill which is passing through Congress. Microsoft is part of a lobbying drive to urge the US Senate to enact a decade-long moratorium on individual states introducing their own efforts to legislate, the Financial Times reported last week. The ban has been written into Trump's 'big beautiful bill' that he wants passed by Independence Day on 4 July. Horvitz was speaking at a meeting of the the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence on Monday when he said: 'It's up to us as scientists to communicate to government agencies, especially those right now who might be making statements about no regulation, [that] this is going to hold us back. 'Guidance, regulation … reliability controls are part of advancing the field, making the field go faster in many ways.' Speaking at the same seminar, Stuart Russell, the professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, said: 'Why would we deliberately allow the release of a technology which even its creators say has a 10% to 30% chance … of causing human extinction? We would never accept anything close to that level of risk for any other technology.' Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion The apparent contradiction between Microsoft's chief scientist and reports of the company's lobbying effort comes amid rising fears that unregulated AI development could pose catastrophic risks to humanity and is being driven by companies prioritising short-term profit. Microsoft has invested $14bn (£10bn) in OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, whose chief executive Sam Altman who this week predicted that: 'In five or 10 years we will have great human robots and they will just walk down the street doing stuff … I think that would be one of the moments that … will feel the strangest.' Predictions of when human-level artificial general intelligence (AGI) will be reached vary from a couple of years to decades. The Meta chief scientist, Yann LeCun, has said AGI could be decades away, while last week his boss, Mark Zuckerberg, announced a $15bn investment in a bid to achieve 'superintelligence'. Microsoft declined to comment.
The Sun
a day ago
- The Sun
Leading car brand launches new SUV that looks just like a Land Rover but only costs £9,000
A LEADING car brand has launched a new SUV that looks just like a Land Rover and is easier on the wallet. The Chinese car firm have obviously taken inspiration from one of the biggest SUV brands on the market but for a fraction of the price. 1 Chery's 2026 Tiggo 7 Sport and Tiggo 7 Plus have been unveiled with both designs looking almost identical to Range Rover's hugely popular Evoque. But it has one major advantage over its European competitors as its set to hit the roads for £9,000. Pricing for the new Tiggo 7 Sports starts at 87,900 yuan in Asia, or around £9,100. The higher end Tiggo 7 Plus is priced slightly higher at 91,900 yuan or £9,400. Compare that to a brand new Evoque and you're looking at an eye-watering £44,000 with costs even exceeding the £50,000 mark in some instances. It's still not as cheap if you purchase a second-hand Evoque which come in at around £20,000. The new Tiggo is not yet sold in Europe and prices are likely to be higher when the model is eventually made available due to importing costs. But British motorists will be happy to hear that, because of the lack of tariffs on brand-new Chinese cars, they will likely pay considerably less than their US or EU counterparts. In Australia, the Tiggo 7 Super Hybrid has been made available with models hitting the market for $39,990. That would equate to around £19,000 in the UK but this is still cheaper than many Western-build SUVs. The Tiggo 7 is available in a range of fuel types including mild hybrid, plug-in hybrid and fully electric options. But those keen on getting their hands on one may have to wait a while as Chery intends to first expand to Eastern European markets. Eastern European nations could see a launch in the second half of this year with an initial focus on midsize plug-in hybrid models. The Tiggo 7 Sport comes with a 1.5 litre turbocharged engine variant delivering 115 kW with a six-speed dual clutch transmission. I restored a classic car I found at a scrapyard – now it's award-winning The model also comes with a mesh grille, concealed door handles and 18-inch alloy wheels. Inside, buyers will find a 13.2 inch screen and a multifunction steering wheel. Spend a bit more for a higher-spec model and you'll see higher end features included such as a panoramic sunroof and ventilated front passenger seat. Chery, the largest exporter of cars from China for the past 22 years, exported 1.14 million vehicles globally in 2024. It was announced last year that Chery was set to launch five new models in the UK markets to rival Kia. Chery decided to launch as a standalone brand despite a pre-existing partnership with British firm Jaguar Land Rover.
