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By Yin Lei

The Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect program has registered a cumulative trading volume of over 10.31 trillion yuan (1.48 trillion U.S. dollars) during its four years of operation, according to the latest statistics of Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE).

On Nov. 17, the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect program, which allows overseas investors to buy and sell stocks listed at the SSE and those in the Chinese mainland to trade shares at the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (SEHK), marked its fourth anniversary.

The SSE’s statistics showed that as of Nov. 17, stocks traded under this program had reached a cumulative amount of 10.31 trillion yuan (1.48 trillion U.S. dollars), with the SSE striking 6.05 trillion yuan (871.3 billion U.S. dollars) in its 930 trading days and the SEHK seeing 4.27 trillion yuan (614.9 billion U.S. dollars) in its 912 days of trading.

In particular, northbound capital flows from Hong Kong to the SSE had been on a steady rise since March this year, reaching an accumulative total of 150 billion yuan as of Nov. 16.

A report of the SSE last week showed multiple factors had fueled the robust interest in the China-listed equities.

On May 1, the daily trading quotas of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect were respectively quadrupled by the securities watchdogs in the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong to 52 billion yuan (7.49 billion U.S. dollars) at the SSE and 42 billion yuan (6.05 billion U.S. dollars) at the SEHK.

On May 31, a total of 226 A-shares entered the MSCI Emerging Market Index after the close of the stock market at an inclusion factor of 2.5 percent. This ratio was later raised to 5 percent on Oct. 31 after another 10 stocks were added to the index. In September, another global index provider FTSE Russell announced the admission of A-shares in the company’s key emerging markets index.

Work is also underway to connect the SSE and the London Stock Exchange, with operation rules unveiled for the depository receipts business between them early this month.