(Yicai Global) April 15 -- Despite Shanghai’s ongoing lockdown, the city’s interbank bond market has been running stably, and the volume of northbound trading by the leading market maker Bank of Communications has even grown.

As of April 13, the eighth trading day of the lockdown, BoCom's northbound bond trading volume has reached CNY23.6 billion (USD3.7 billion) this month, an almost 82 percent jump from a year earlier, Wang Zhijian, a senior manager at the bank’s financial markets department, told Yicai Global yesterday.

The Shanghai-based bank’s bond trading operations have been almost unscathed by the pandemic, Wang said.

Offshore investors can trade mainland bonds through the Hong Kong Bond Connect, a mutual market access scheme that opened in July 2017. Over the past four years, northbound turnover has exceeded CNY1.2 trillion (USD188 billion).

Trading flows on the China Interbank Bond Market have been stable this month, as brokerages have enhanced their automated systems and some staff has remained in offices during Shanghai's more than two weeks of phased lockdowns. 

Market makers have a responsibility to maintain the liquidity of bond trading by providing continuous quotations, said Wang, who has been living at work for nearly three weeks. State-owned BoCom is keeping up a stable commitment of personnel and time through the combination of online and offline offices, ensuring timely responses and high-quality returns, he said.

Financial institutions in Shanghai had drawn up contingency plans before the lockdown, including hotlines and virtual solutions, Wang said. BoCom has been making use of its quantitative trading system, which debuted late last year, to automate replies to foreign investors’ price inquiries.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi