Date: August 16, 2013
Source: Futures Daily

　　According to the interim performance report in the first half of 2013 released by the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx) yesterday, its net profit is HKD2.328 billion, up by 5% year-on-year, with its operation revenue of HKD4.44 billion, up by 17.8% year-on-year. Its acquisition of London Metal Exchange (LME) last year has contributed HKD267 million to its profit, as the volume of LME has increased by 9% compared with the same period of last year to 86.80 million contracts.

Although LME brought profit to HKEx, it also downgraded the overall performance of HKEx, as its operational expenditure of HKD341 million in the first half pulled up that of HKEx to HKD1.341 billion, up by 37% on a year-on-year basis.

Charles Li, Chief Executive Officer of HKEx, said at the briefings of performance that LME’s clearing house was planned to be launched in September 2014. At that time, LME will fully move toward the commercialization, which is expected to lower its operation expenditure and increase the profits of HKEx.

He said again that HKEx would take LME as an important platform to promote the interconnection between the two sides and to speed up the opening up of the Renminbi capital account. It is predicted that the internationalization of Renminbi and the gradual opening-up of China’s mainland in the future will bring about structural improvement to the market.