Fund raising in debt and equity capital markets in Asia, outside of Japan and Australasia, rose in the first half of 2025 on the back of more transactions from China.

G3 bond issuance, figures supplied by LSEG show, surged 26.2% to US$156.35 billion, compared with US$123.91 billion in the first six months of 2024. This is the largest first-half tally since January-June 2022 when the volume fetched US$141.57 billion.

China overtook South Korea as the biggest G3 bond issuer during the six-month period with a total volume of US$47.27 billion, up 46.6% from the comparable period in 2024. Total number of issuances nearly doubled from 99 to 191 during the same period.

Chinese banks – Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, ICBC and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank – once again led the issuances during the period as they accessed the market through their various global network. Also actively tapping the G3 bond market were the financial leasing companies, such as BoCom Financial Leasing, CMB Financial Leasing and ICBC Financial Leasing.

South Korea was the second-largest issuer with a total of US$40.46 billion, up from US$37.14 billion in the first half of 2024. The issuances from this market were led by LG Energy Solution, which printed in March a four-tranche offering totalling US$2 billion. Several issuances came from repeat issuers, such as Industrial Bank of Korea, Kepco, Export-Import Bank of Korea, Korea National Oil Corporation, Korea Housing Finance Corporation. KT Corporation, Posco and Shinhan Bank.

Hong Kong recorded a significant increase in G3 bond offerings to US$19.09 billion in January-June 2025 from US$11.08 billion from a year earlier. The volume was driven by large deals from the Airport Authority of Hong Kong amounting to US$4.15 billion in January, Mass Transit Railway Corporation US$3 billion in March and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region ( HKSAR ) US$1 billion and €1 billion ( US$1.18 billion ) in June.

Transactions in the equity capital markets ( ECM ) in Asia, outside of Japan and Australasia, showed a strong recovery in the first half of 2025 when the deal volume climbed 38.6% to US$103.32 billion, compared with US$74.56 billion in the same period a year ago.

Deals out of China, according to LSEG, more than doubled during the period from US$26.98 billion to US$57.40 billion on the back of large follow-on offerings from BYD with proceeds amounting to US$5.59 billion, Xiaomi US$5.48 billion and Contemporary Amperex Technology Company US$5.25 billion. There were also convertible bond offerings from Baidu amounting to US$2 billion and Ping An Insurance ( Group ) Company of China amounting to US$1.5 billion.

India also maintained a brisk level of ECM activity in the first half of 2025 with a total volume of US$26.03 billion, though this amount was down from the previous year’s volume of US$30.78 billion. Like in China, follow-on offerings underpinned the ECM activity in India with MakeMyTrip raising US$1.66 billion, ITC raising US$1.51 billion and Bharti Airtel, US$1.51 billion.

From the IPO market, the largest fundraising were undertaken by HDB Financial Services with proceeds amounting to US$1.46 billion and Hexaware Technologies with US$1.01 billion.