Will China rule the roost in 2017?

We’re currently coming to the end of China’s week-long celebrations for the lunar new year. On 28 January, the year of the rooster began with fireworks and the promising note that in Chinese astrology, the rooster is the epitome of fidelity and punctuality. I was out in Hong Kong just before the festivities, and one thing that I enjoyed was once again witnessing  people exchanging their red envelopes. As many of you may know, it is common for gifts to be exchanged during the Chinese New Year and the most common gifts are these red envelopes, usually containing money – signifying fortune for the year ahead. Red is the main colour for the Chinese New Year festival, as it is believed to be a colour that brings good luck.

At this festive time, it was nice to see the market – just like clockwork - deliver its “red envelope” – with news that as of March 2017, the role of Chinese bonds in a key range of Bloomberg Barclays fixed income indices will increase.  This is a key market development for the internationalization of the RMB, and should lead to a broader range of international market participants increasing their exposure to Chinese securities. At Clearstream, we’ve always striven to be a key facilitator of the globalization of Chinese capital markets, as you can see from our Spark summary.

I suspect that this latest red envelope will not be the last such development we see over the course of 2017, and I look forward to being able to share with you all further news of our own new initiatives in China.

At this special time, I wish you all happy and prosperous year, or as they say in Chinese: