Chinese index provider Sino-Securities Index Information Service (Shanghai) Co (SSI) has introduced a series of indexes that focus on sustainability to capture the rising green investment trend as Beijing puts greater focus on climate change.
SSI teamed up with Hong Kong venture capital manager Donkey Ministry to roll out nine large- and mid-cap Chinese equities indexes this February, including five with environmental, social and governance (ESG) screening.
The ESG benchmarks can provide Mainland investors with more options to access sustainable investing, according to Liu Zhong, founder and general manager of SSI.
“ESG is becoming one of the most popular investment themes in China’s ETF [exchange-traded fund] space as the government outlines a number of initiatives to facilitate green energy and climate-related developments,” Liu says in an interview with
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Indexes Company plans to nearly double the number of stocks in its flagship benchmark to 100 to make it more widely representative, a move that one market participant describes as “inevitable” to accommodate Chinese shares listed in the city.
The company will select the stocks from seven industry groups, including technology and healthcare, and slash the listing history requirement for inclusion into the 52-year-old Hang Seng Index to three months from the current two years.
The index provider is targeting to raise the number of stocks in the benchmark to 80 by mid-2022 through regular reviews, and cap the total at 100, it says in a statement on March 1.