Over one million Hong Kong individuals applied for the initial public offering (IPO) of the Bank of China Limited (BOC), about one of every five or six Hong Kong residents above 18 on an average submitted the application forms via internet or financial organizations.

The bank's IPO also attracted many investors from the Middle East. A Middle East businessman borrowed 1.5 billion HK dollars ( 192 million U.S. dollars) from Hong Kong security firms to apply for the IPO.

BOC Chairman Xiao Gang said at a press conference on Friday that the bank's successful IPO indicated that international investors have full confidence in Chinese mainland's steady economic growth, restructuring of the financial systems and other financial reforms.

He said BOC will not affect the roles of the Bank of China ( Hong Kong) Limited in the Chinese mainland after BOC's listing in Hong Kong and the two banks are seeking ways for further cooperation.

BOC offered a total of 25.57 billion H shares in its global offering, including initially 1.28 billion H shares for the HK public offering and 24.29 billion H shares for the international offering.

Trading of the BOC's H shares is scheduled to commence on June 1 on the main board of the Hong Kong Exchange and Clearing Limited. The lot size is 1,000 shares.

Source: Xinhua