China’s financial openness attracts global investors, expert says

Beijing. May 15. Silkroadnews - China’s recent measures to open access to its financial sector attracted a large number of global investors, People’s Daily reports.
Last week, Japan’s largest securities trader Nomura became the first foreign company planning to establish a holding company in China after the country eased access to its securities market.
The company seeks to retain a 51% stake in the new company and submitted an application to the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC).
Following this, the CSRC announced that J. P. Morgan Broking (Hong Kong) Limited had applied to establish a securities firm with majority ownership in China, the company also plans to retain a 51% stake in the new firm.
In the meantime, the International Investment Bank UBS decided at the beginning of this month to increase its stake from 24.99% to 51% in the joint venture based in China UBS Securities Co., which is the first foreign-invested fully-licensed securities firm in China, the report reads.
“These are important signals of China’s financial opening up, showing the country’s great market potential and confidence from global investors,” the agency quoted Yang Changyong, a senior researcher from the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research, saying.
At the end of April, China released guidelines allowing foreign investors to establish securities trading firms with the status of holding as part of China’s efforts to increase its openness.
“The move is an important step of further opening China's securities sector to foreign players, and it will bring healthy competition and help introduce mature experiences and expertise from overseas institutions to the domestic industry,” Yang said.
Since the beginning of 2018, a year of the 40th anniversary of the country’s reform and policy of opening up, China has implemented a number of measures to significantly expand the access of foreign investors to the markets.
In April China announced it will increase quotas for two pilot schemes that will allow domestic investors to gain access to foreign assets.
The quota for the Qualified Domestic Limited Partnership program in Shanghai and the quota for the Qualified Domestic Investment Enterprise program in Shenzhen will be expanded to 5 billion US dollars each, the report reads.
According to Jing Ulrich, managing director and vice chair of Asia Pacific of JPMorgan Chase, the attractiveness of the Chinese market is growing day by day.
“Investors from around the world are moving to add investment here in preparation for opportunities to emerge in the future,” Ulrich said.
Speaking at the Boao Forum, a part of the annual Asian conference in Hainan Province, the governor of the People’s Bank of China Yi Gang emphasized equal treatment of domestic and foreign companies.
“Their performance and competitiveness are up to themselves. The market is open,” he said.