The Chinese like replicas of foreign landmarks. There is a chunk of Venice near Tianjin and an Eiffel Tower in Tianducheng. Not to be outdone, Qianhai has a version of the London Metal Exchange, complete with outcry trading ring. It might as well be a backdrop for wedding photos like the other two: no trading is going on.
Hong Kong Stock Exchange, owner of the LME, has so far failed to win approval from Chinese regulators to deal in non-ferrous metals in Qianhai. Cue mutterings on the fringes of LME Asia Week, beginning on Thursday. Critics — plenty of those in the hard-nosed commodities industry — will say the purchase of LME for £1.388bn in 2012 was ill-starred, despite “lucky” eights in the purchase price.
The deal certainly has not lived up to its hype so far. It was meant to pave the way for LME, a 140-year-old venue, to open exchanges and warehouses in China, the world’s biggest consumer of metals. It has been an uphill struggle for Charles Li, the HKEX boss who inked the deal. Local venues have good commercial reasons to lobby against incursions.