Hong Kong Photo: VCG

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd (HKEX) CEO Bonnie Y Chan highlighted in a blog post on Tuesday that 2025 was a bustling year for the exchange, with a surge of major IPOs and record-breaking trading volumes. She noted that two key drivers are fueling this trend: the global push for capital diversification and China's shift toward a high-value, innovation-led growth model.

In January, China's "DeepSeek moment" was a signal of much more than the country's prowess in frontier technologies - it was a reminder that the world's second-largest economy is moving from a growth model driven by traditional manufacturing to one driven by high-value, innovative sectors.

Subsequently, waves of companies from a broad spectrum of sectors emerged from the Chinese mainland and leveraged the HKEX fundraising platform to grow their businesses internationally, further making the trend more apparent, she wrote. 

During 2025, the HKEX welcomed more than 100 new listings, raising more than HK$270 billion ($34.70 billion) in funds, including the two largest IPOs globally this year. More than 300 companies are already in the pipeline, preparing to go public next year, according to Chan.

She stated that markets will always be cyclical in nature but the HKEX is confident about the long-term growth of markets in Asia, which boasts the largest population, and has seen its share of global GDP almost double since 1990. 

It is the largest contributor to global merchandise trade. It attracts about 40 percent of worldwide foreign direct investment flows, and it accounts for 55 percent of the world's listed companies and 27 percent of global market capitalization, said the blog.

In the past decade, the HKEX's efforts were focused on developing and enhancing our capital market connectivity to the Chinese mainland, which supported the mainland's economic aspirations and cemented Hong Kong's role as a "global superconnector," said Chan.

As to the future development path of the HKEX, Chan wrote that its unique market connectivity to the Chinese mainland is its greatest advantage as a global exchange, and she pledged to further reinforce it.

"In the next decade, we will also focus on strengthening the connectivity of other markets in Asia to the China growth story," she wrote, adding that it will bring Asian markets, such as Southeast Asia, to investors in the Chinese mainland, and open the markets of the Chinese mainland to investors from around Asia, forming a regional liquidity pool with a powerful global gravitational pull.