It was emphasized yesterday by Governor of the People's Bank of China Zhou Xianochuan that the country would continue developing and opening up its financial markets. 

 

"We'll continue our efforts to develop our financial market and widen it gradually during the development," Zhou said at the Sino-French Financial Forum in Beijing. He said China had made progress in opening up its financial sector.

 

Zhou explained that by the end of June 71 overseas lenders had set up 214 branches in China and were conducting corporate renminbi business in 25 cities. A total of 26 overseas financial institutions had taken a share in 18 Chinese banks with their combined investment being US$17.9 billion.

 

And 23 foreign-invested fund management joint ventures and eight foreign-invested brokerages had been established by the end of June. Also 42 overseas institutions had been approved to invest in China's A-share market under the qualified foreign institutional investor program, Zhou told the forum.

 

The country will allow overseas lenders to deal with renminbi retail business at the end of this year in line with its World Trade Organization (WTO) commitment and the banking regulator is currently working out the administrative rules for foreign banks.

 

While observing its WTO commitment China would also adopt opening and reform measures to meet the needs of market development, Zhou said. "The government will gradually loosen its control over the renminbi's capital account convertibility and push for free convertibility of the yuan in a stable manner," he explained.  

 

Currently the country has no timetable for widening the yuan's trading band. "It depends on whether the band is enough for the market," Zhou said in response to questions seeking details of band widening.

 

Also during yesterday's financial forum, Xiang Huaicheng, head of the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) revealed they plan to invest an initial 1 billion yuan (US$125 million) in the Bohai Industrial Investment Fund.

 

The Bohai fund, the first such equity fund in China, was being prepared and could be established by the end of September or later, the China Securities Journal has reported, citing the Mayor of Tianjin Municipality Dai Xianglong. The newspaper said the fund's total capital would be 20 billion yuan (US$2.5 billion) with an initial investment of 6 billion yuan (US$750 million).

 

"If the Bohai fund proves to be a success the NSSF will look to expand into other such investment funds in the future," Xiang told reporters. The fund would also start investing abroad soon with European markets among potential targets, he said.

 

By the end of August, the social security fund had total assets of 230 billion yuan (US$28.75 billion) and invested in a variety of financial areas in domestic markets including bank deposits, stocks, bonds and trust funds.

 

(China Daily September 22, 2006)