Perhaps naming companies is a skill that improves over time. The lack of a catchy or even descriptive name is not the only reason that Citic’s $48bn revamp in Hong Kong has gone almost unremarked this week. Although the name will not have helped, Citic’s real significance lies in its position in the vanguard of China’s reforms. Its arrival, together with progress on the equally memorable Hong Kong-Shanghai Stock Connect, are proof that change is coming.

China International Trust and Investment Corporation, to give the state-owned enterprise its original name, is, in effect, a reverse listing. The injection of $37bn in assets has transformed atypically sprawling SoE with a smallish $6bn Hong Kong offshoot into a $48bn company ostensibly run through that listed entity and spread across businesses from finance to a football team. In the slow-moving world of SoE reform, it is a start.

In the meantime, there is the Stock Connect, which allows Hong Kong and Shanghai investors access to each other’s markets for the first time. The Hong Kong Exchange just completed a round of tests and an October launch is on course. Early scepticism – a 2007 plan failed but not before sending the Hang Seng up 60 per cent – is fading. Since the plan was announced in April, the HKEx is the Hang Seng’s biggest gainer, up 38 per cent. There are benefits to stocks in both markets. Mainlanders will have access to such companies as Tencent and Hutchison Whampoa while arbitrageurs are eyeing dual-listings such as Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank, China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec), to name a few.