SHANGHAI -- China's forex regulator said Thursday that the country will properly ease and even cancel quota management for Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFII) in a bid to further widen investment scope for overseas investors.

There is relatively large room for the growth of overseas investors in China's capital markets as their proportion is still low, said Pan Gongsheng, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, at the Lujiazui Forum in Shanghai.

China will continue to advance the two-way opening-up of its capital markets, said Pan, who is also head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

Since the beginning of this year, net purchases of domestic bonds by foreign investors reached 500 billion yuan (about $72.6 billion), according to Pan.

The demands of overseas investors to hold yuan-denominated assets remain very strong as the Chinese economy has been operating steadily with a more mature forex market, he added.

The QFII program, introduced in 2003, allows overseas institutional investors to move money into China's capital account for investment.