HONG KONG | Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd is hoping to attract Spanish fashion retailer Zara to pursue a listing in Hong Kong, Sing Tao Daily reported on Thursday.

A shopper walks past a Zara store along Huai Hai Road, one of the main shopping districts in Shanghai, China. / Photo: Corbis

Hong Kong Exchanges Chairman Ronald Arculli will visit Spain and Austria next month in a roadshow aiming to promote Hong Kong as a listing venue and the bourse is arranging to meet the management of Zara group, the paper said.

Zara is controlled by Spanish group Inditex, the world's biggest fashion retailer.

The Hong Kong bourse aims to attract listing candidates from the retail and finance industry in Spain and the clean energy sector in Austria, the paper added. It gave no further details.

Hong Kong Exchanges officials were not immediately available for comment.

Earlier in October, Hong Kong Exchanges said it did not expect its bottom line to be hit by a drop in its initial public offers pipeline.

Inditex reported last month a slowdown in sales growth in the period from Aug. 1 to Sept. 17 after a forecast-beating half-year, raising fears that the deepening debt crisis in Europe is dampening consumer spending.

(Reporting by Donny Kwok; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)