The fact that Chinese investors can finally buy shares in Alibaba Group Holding could give the e-commerce company’s share price a much-needed boost and bring it inflows of as much as $20 billion next year.

The company first floated the plan to upgrade to a primary listing in Hong Kong two years ago as tensions with the US were mounting. By the end of the month, that plan could finally be implemented, paving the way for it to participate in a program linking the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges with the Hong Kong exchange.

This new source of funds via the so-called southbound link could support the share price, which has underperformed that of its main rival Tencent Holdings amid concerns about the impact of competition and sluggish consumption in China.

“We believe Alibaba’s inclusion in the Stock Connect market would have a positive impact on the stock and could help stabilize sentiment as the company is a well-known name among mainland investors,” said Marvin Chen, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. Mainland holdings in the stock could reach double-digit percentages, similar to other tech giants, Chen added.

Alibaba’s shares are up just 2 percent in Hong Kong so far this year, while major rivals Tencent and Meituan are up 25 percent each. China’s weak retail sales have hurt Alibaba’s core business, and price wars in cloud services are slowing growth in a potential new growth engine. Alibaba’s American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) rose as much as 5.8 percent on Friday, their biggest one-day gain since May.

On Thursday, Alibaba reported a meager four percent rise in first-quarter revenue after its Chinese e-commerce business shrank for the first time in at least a year. Profits plunged 27 percent, dashing hopes of a quick turnaround.

The company had originally planned the dual primary listing for 2022, fearing a possible delisting of its ADRs, a threat that later faded. The next step in the plan is a shareholder vote at the annual general meeting on August 22. If the switch to the Hong Kong primary listing is completed by the end of the month, the shares could be included in Stock Connect no earlier than September 9, according to Morgan Stanley.

“We expect some inflows, but not large ones,” analyst Laura Wang wrote in a June note. In the first six months after listing, the inflows are expected to be around $12 billion, or about 7 percent of Alibaba’s total outstanding shares. Bloomberg Intelligence’s Chen expects inflows of up to around $19.5 billion, but “these will take some time to accumulate and the initial impact will not be that large.”

Share price performance of other Stock Connect members has been mixed, with Xpeng and Kuaishou Technology seeing declines in the month following the switch. Xipu Han, a quant strategist at JPMorgan Chase, expects Alibaba to perform more like Meituan, whose stock outperformed the benchmark in the month following its inclusion and whose trading volume rose 20 percent in six months.

Of course, the stock’s performance depends more on the company’s fundamentals and the environment in which it operates, but the entry of Chinese investors can increase momentum, especially given the recent outflow of foreign funds.