(Yicai) Dec. 4 -- Bond Connect, the company that runs the program allowing investors in the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong to trade in each other's bond markets, will cut its fees by 60 percent, the most in the scheme’s seven-year history, to lower trading costs and boost activity.

For bonds with a remaining term of a year or less, fees will drop to 0.0006 percent of the nominal value from 0.0015 percent on Jan. 1, while for those with a term of more than one year, they will fall to 0.0012 percent from 0.0030 percent, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.

It will be the fourth time that Hong Kong-based Bond Connect has reduced its fees.

The bond connect program, which was launched in July 2017, had more than 800 investors as of the end of October from nearly 40 business types, including asset managers, sovereign wealth funds, banks, brokerages, pension funds, insurers, and hedge funds.

Trading through the program set a new record in the first 10 months of this year, with average daily transaction volumes of CNY43.1 billion (USD5.9 billion), 20 times that of 2017. Total volume over the period came to CNY9 trillion (USD1.2 trillion).

The scheme has grown by an average 62 percent annually over the past seven years, becoming an important channel for capital inflows into China's financial market. It also plays a major role in improving the country's balance of payments and promoting the internationalization of the financial market.

Bond Connect aims to advance the high-level opening-up of China's capital markets and strengthen its role as a bridge between the mainland and Hong Kong financial markets, according to the firm.

Editor: Kim Taylor