Tannet reads from China Daily that Thailand is seeking to deepen cooperation with the Chinese mainland in capital markets by setting up a stock connect program, a senior Stock Exchange of Thailand official said on Wednesday.
The Belt and Road Initiative introduced by President Xi Jinping in 2013 had unleashed huge opportunities for cooperation between Thailand and the mainland, including in the securities sector, said Santi Kiranand, senior executive vice-president of SET.
Thailand is ready to embrace the openness brought by the initiative and is exploring the possibility of building connectivity with Shenzhen and Shanghai stock exchanges, he told the Belt and Road Securities Markets Forum in Shenzhen.
The mainland has so far launched two cross-border stock connect programs – Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect and Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect – letting mainland investors buy Hong Kong stocks and vice versa.
"We welcome these opportunities and all these possibilities. It will be beneficial to both Chinese and Thai people,” he said.
Kiranand said the total market value of Thailand stocks had reached US$420 billion, 1.2 times the country’s gross domestic product.
Liao Ling, strategic analyst of Guangfa Securities, said financial cooperation was at the core of Belt and Road-related projects. “But financial integration may be a difficulty companies will have to face in future as financial systems between China and other countries have huge differences,” he said.
Other people expressed concern over the foreign-exchange risk of investing overseas, and the central government’s capital control policies.
Executive director of Chungyang Financial Research Institute at Renmin University of China Wang Wen dismissed the concern, however.
"Exchange rate of the yuan has been the most stable, compared to that of some other countries along the Belt and Road routes like Turkey, Iran and India,” Wang said.
"Meanwhile, although the yuan has shown fluctuation in recent days, it is a short-term phenomenon. From long-term perspective, the process of yuan internationalization and the opening of China’s capital account is accelerating …We need not be too pessimistic about that.”
Previous：US, China and India may become top destinations for foreign direct investment
Next：US business leaders see benefits from strong trade ties with China