On 3 July 2019, the Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China (MoF), the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Beijing concerning the obtaining of audit working papers maintained in the Mainland regarding audits conducted by accounting firms in Hong Kong SAR.
The Vice Minister of MoF, Ms. Cheng Lihua and the CEO of SFC, Mr. Ashley Alder attended the signing ceremony and delivered speeches. The Vice Chairman of CSRC, Mr. Fang Xinghai delivered his speech in written form.
Over the years, the regulatory authorities in Mainland and Hong Kong SAR have maintained very close and sound cooperative relationship, and established effective mechanism and smooth channel for securities enforcement cooperation and information sharing regarding audit working papers. Built upon the IOSCO MMoU and the existing bilateral supervisory cooperation framework, the signing of the MoU is a further refinement and perfection of the existing supervisory and enforcement cooperative arrangements between mainland China and Hong Kong SAR, which will help both sides to jointly combat misconducts such as misrepresentation, accounting fraud, etc., improve the quality of information disclosure of listed companies, protect the legitimate interests of investors, and maintain steady and sound development of the capital markets in both mainland and Hong Kong SAR.
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