ABOUT 400 people marched in Hong Kong's financial district yesterday to protest against a shorter lunch break, which the bourse operator has said is crucial to boost competitiveness and align it more closely with China's mainland.

After a lengthy consultation, Hong Kong shortened its two-hour lunch break to 90 minutes last March, trading from 9:30am to 12pm and 1:30pm to 4pm. It now aims to cut the lunch break from March by another 30 minutes to an hour from noon.

"Obviously, with the economic situation being what it is, we never introduced this reform on trading hours with a view to increasing trading volume. But if we did not introduce this, I fear we would lose some competitive edge," said Ronald Arculli, chairman of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd.

Patrick Lam, chairman of the Hong Kong Securities & Futures Employees Union, said people from the restaurant industry had also joined the march as the shorter lunch break would hurt their industry and the broader economy.

Marching after the stock market closed, some of the protesters waved placards saying: "You want us to trade until we drop. We want you to drop before we trade."

Brokers say the longer hours mean they will need to hire more people at a time when transaction volumes are low.

Hong Kong and Shanghai are increasingly competing against each other for business.