The legislation was part of a broader policy initiative to develop a commodity trading ecosystem in the city, Chan said at the LME Asia Metals Seminar. In February, he said the bill would be brought to the Legislative Council in the first half of 2026.
Chan’s remarks came a day after the London Metal Exchange (LME) added three more Hong Kong warehouses to its global network, following an initial approval of four in April. This, he said at the seminar, was “bringing storage facilities closer than ever to the industrial heartlands and consumption centres on the Chinese mainland”.
“The progress is impressive,” Chan added.
China is the world’s largest metals consumer, but Beijing does not allow non-mainland exchanges to operate delivery warehouses within the country. In January, the LME said it would add Hong Kong to its global warehouse network in an effort to meet rising demand for the physical exchange of metals between mainland China and the rest of the world.
“We’ve really focused on being as close as possible to the mainland and Hong Kong is the ultimate expression of that,” said Matthew Chamberlain, the LME’s CEO.
Chamberlain said 85 per cent of the LME’s stock of metals is held in Asia, which “reflects the evolution of the underlying industry, and it’s also no surprise that a lot of that is about servicing the mainland China market”.
