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The Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Hong Kong Institute of Chartered Secretaries (HKICS) in Shanghai yesterday, with an aim to better meet the demand of the increasingly developed securities market as well as jointly impel the professional growth of secretaries to directorate in China’s mainland. SSE Vice President Zhou Qinye and HKICS President April Chan attended the signing ceremony.
The MOU initiative taken by the two sides as a strategic cooperation serves as a move to complement each other’s advantages to meet the trend of global regulatory cooperation by taking the status quo of corporate governance of China’s listed companies into consideration under the backdrop of building Shanghai into an international financial hub and increasing domestic and overseas listings of mainland companies. According to the MOU, the two sides will join hands to study and exchange governance and compliance rules for domestic and overseas secretaries to directorate or company secretaries in their listing businesses. As a strategic partner, HKICS will participate in the follow-up trainings for listed companies held by the SSE every year (including but not limited to trainings for secretaries to directorate and independent directors) to facilitate domestic secretaries’ understanding of governance practices and standards of international companies. In addition, the SSE and HKICS will jointly issue a research report on governance of mainland, Hong Kong and international companies on an annual basis, with an aim to strengthen exchange of practices of secretaries to directorate or company secretaries between mainland and Hong Kong. Furthermore, the SSE, to be introduced by HKICS as the guide for International Qualifying Scheme Examinations in China’s mainland, will assist HKICS in localizing the design and content of the Examinations, which will be prepared in Chinese to test the domestic secretaries to directorate on their knowledge of profession.
From 1996 to 2000, the SSE and HKICS, by taking their respective advantages, jointly held a series of effective trainings for mainland directorate secretaries and senior executives of listed companies. The two sides have been maintaining close relationship and cooperation by regular visit, information communication and experience exchange. The MOU, under which the two sides can better use the resources, marks a strengthened strategic partnership between the two sides with more sustained and in-depth long-term cooperation in an all-round way.
