China is revising rules on the management of foreign institutional investors’ funds trading in domestic securities and futures, easing requirements for the funds’ registration and currency conversions.
The revisions are intended to attract foreign investors to domestic financial markets amid a decline in foreign investment due to concerns about economic growth and better returns elsewhere.
The draft rules released by the central bank and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) would remove the requirement for foreign investors to register their funds under the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) program and the yuan-denominated Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (RQFII) program at the SAFE.
Investors would also be able to remit principal and investment gains in yuan rather than first converting the funds into foreign currency, as required under current rules.
Qualified foreign investors will be allowed access to the interbank foreign exchange market to handle spot forex settlement and foreign currency derivatives transactions through their custodian banks or other domestic financial institutions.
The new rules also would simplify account management. Under current rules, foreign investors have to open separate deposit accounts for securities investments and derivatives transactions. Now they can combine the two types of accounts.
Foreign funds sold 172 billion yuan ($23.6 billion) of mainland shares in the three months that ended in October. That threatens to turn this year’s foreign flows negative for the first time since China opened a second mainland-Hong Kong stock trading link in late 2016.
Foreign institutional investor holdings of bonds in China’s interbank market fell from a record 4 trillion yuan in 2021 to 3.19 trillion yuan at the end of September, according to data released by China’s central bank.
The simplified requirements are expected to reduce the administrative and operational costs of investing in China, but it is difficult to have an immediate effect on short-term cross-border capital flows, a senior foreign bank official told Caixin. The changes will lower the barriers to investing in China, but the bigger impetus for foreign investment will come from improving market expectations for returns, the banker said.