Over the past week or so, global markets have seen heightened volatility reflecting the macro environment and impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. Throughout this period, HKEX’s markets have continued to operate with resilience, upholding a fair and orderly trading environment while at the same time ensuring the safety and well-being of our colleagues. Our clearing and risk management systems have remained fully functional, providing efficiency, reliability and transparency, at a time when this is most needed. Market safety mechanisms, such as our trading halt arrangements for after-hours options trading, have functioned as expected.
We have put in place a comprehensive business continuity management (BCM) framework to ensure ongoing service continuity and stability. Internally, we have implemented a series of precautionary measures across our sites in Asia and the UK and provided timely travel and health advisories to ensure all of our colleagues are protected.
In times like this, market operators must rise to the challenge and provide stable and transparent access to liquidity for our issuers, market participants and investors. We remain committed to keeping our markets fully operational, though the current global pressures on financial markets mean that we will continue to operate with a heightened sense of vigilance in the coming weeks and months. Functioning capital markets, with their price discovery and risk management capabilities, play a critical function in ensuring global economic stability, and we are focused on playing our role.
I am proud of the diligence and persistence of our HKEX teams, in particular those overseeing our critical operations during this difficult period. We will stay focused on supporting our markets, while showing care and consideration for all as we weather this storm together. I am confident that we will emerge from this stronger and more resilient than ever.
Charles Li
HKEX Chief Executive