China grants US$250m quotas
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-06-18 10:56
China's foreign exchange authority has awarded additional investment quotas
totaling 250 million U.S.dollars to two qualified foreign institutional
investors (QFII).
The two QFIIs are the Bank of Nova Scotia in Canada and
the KBC Financial Products UK Limited, which received investment quotas of 150
million dollars and 100 million dollars respectively from the State
Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE).
The Bank of Nova Scotia,
established in 1832, is one of the major financial institutions in North America
with total asset exceeding 260 billion U.S. dollars. It has offices in Beijing
and Shanghai, subsidiary banks in Guangzhou and Chongqing, and holds 4 percent
shares of Xi'an City Commercial Bank.
The KBC Financial Products UK
Limited is an investment company affiliated to the renowned KBC Bank of
Belgium.
The Chinese government launched the QFII pilot program in 2003,
allowing foreign institutional investors such as the UBS, Deutsche Bank, and
Citigroup Global Markets Limited to engage in the securities business on the
Chinese mainland.
Since then, the regulator has been making efforts to
improve rules and regulations in a bid to open the stock market wider to foreign
investment.
To date, 40 foreign investment institutions have been
approved as QFIIs. Up to now, the SAFE has awarded investment quotas totaling
7.145 billion U.S. dollars to QFIIs.
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