A senior official said on Monday that China had fully fulfilled
its commitments to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on opening up
its capital markets.
"As an emerging market, China not only made great commitments to
opening up its securities industry upon its entry into the WTO, but
also fully fulfilled those commitments," said Liu Xinhua, chairman
assistant of China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC).
CSRC statistics show that China had ratified eight joint-venture
security companies and 24 joint-venture fund management companies
by the end of November. The share proportion of foreign capital was
as high as 49 percent in 11 of the fund management companies.
Fifty-eight foreign security institutions can now operate B
share stocks on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges,
according to CSRC.
Five years ago, China promised to allow foreign investors to
conduct B share trading in its stock markets after the WTO entry.
Joint ventures are also part of the commitments.
Liu said that over the past five years, China had taken many
measures to open up its capital market, which had resulted in
rising foreign investment.
A recent report showed that qualified foreign institutional
investors (QFIIs) had overtaken securities dealers as the second
largest investor group in the Renminbi-dominated A-share market,
second only to security funds.
Statistics showed QFIIs owned an equity value of more than 24
billion yuan (US$3 billion) in 214 listed companies, a steady
growth from 20.1 billion yuan in 194 companies in the first six
months.
By the end of November, China had granted a total investment
quota of US$8.645 billion to 52 QFII companies since 2003, when the
government launched the QFII program to allow foreign investment
banks, insurance companies and annuity funds to enter the domestic
capital market.
"We will expand the scale of QFII and introduce various types of
qualified foreign institutional investors," said Liu.
The official also promised to further open up China's capital
market and improve relevant regulations.
(Xinhua News Agency December 12, 2006)
