The chairman of the Hong Kong chapter of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, Stanley Ho, called on Monday for officials to consider extending trading hours and introducing an IPO Connect scheme as part of measures to further boost the city's stock market.

Speaking in an interview with RTHK ahead of the upcoming Policy Address on Wednesday, he also proposed tweaks be made to the government's scholarship schemes to retain talent and ease the city's manpower shortage.

Ho's remarks came as the daily average turnover on Hong Kong's stock exchange rose to HK$248.3 billion in the first eight months of the year, up by 132 percent year on year, while total funds raised via initial public offerings reached HK$134.5 billion – almost six times higher year on year to rank as the most globally.

Looking ahead, while Ho forecasts the stock market rally will continue throughout the year – fuelled by new listings and as more Chinese "concept stocks" return to the domestic market, he believes officials can do more to further aid the rising momentum.

"Extending trading hours is a good option. Some markets have even said they’ll move to 24-hour trading in the future.

"But if you extend the hours, there are things to think about. Not every investor will watch the market around the clock – what if you wake up and a stock has already plunged?" said Ho.

"So how do we manage that? We need to discuss things like volatility controls and trading halts; all of that has to be coordinated."

Ho proposed that authorities can consider introducing the so-called "IPO Connect" under the city's Stock Connect programme, as such an IPO-focused cross-border investment mechanism has already been floated by market players and investors over the past years.

Under the proposed "IPO Connect" linkage, mainland investors would be allowed to subscribe to Hong Kong IPOs and vice versa, further deepening the connectivity in the primary fund-raising market, which has yet to be included in the Stock Connect programme.

Ho holds an optimistic view on the city's economic outlook for the year, noting potential interest rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve could inject growth momentum into Hong Kong's economy and that the city's annual growth could reach between 2 and 3 percent – as the government predicted.

But he called on the government to roll out more measures to attract and retain talent – as an earlier government study found that the city will face a manpower shortage of 180,000 in about three years – by 2028.

"We need to figure out a way to retain the graduates, getting them to work here to serve Hong Kong," Ho said.

"Say we can provide more scholarships. Right now, we have the 'Belt and Road Scholarship' for non-local students, but perhaps we can include a prerequisite that they can only receive the scholarship if they stay in Hong Kong and work in certain professional service industries for three to five years.

"This way, we can attract them to stay in Hong Kong, contribute to its economy, while filling in the labour shortage gap."