Due to Typhoon Imbudo, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx) announced this morning (Thursday) that its securities market would open at 10:30 a.m. (the market usually opens at 10:00 a.m.).  The market was subsequently opened at 10:32 a.m. instead of the planned time of 10:30 a.m.  This was due to the longer than expected activation time of the manual market opening procedures.  HKEx regrets any inconvenience caused.

When contingency measures are implemented due to inclement weather, such as typhoons, and the market is not opened as scheduled, the securities market trading system is put under manual control and the market is opened, if needed, manually.  This practice has been in use since 1986 to handle all types of contingencies.

Preparation for manual market opening requires the entry of a certain quantity of data and processing time.  This manual opening procedure is further complicated by the existence of several markets, namely, the Main Board, the Growth Enterprise Market, the Nasdaq Pilot Programme and the market for the two regional iShares.  As a result, when the market is opened manually, the opening time may not be very precise.  HKEx will review the manual market opening procedures with the objective of minimising trading inconvenience caused by the difficulty of manually opening the markets at an exact time.