China Investment Corp (CIC, 中國投資公司), China’s sovereign wealth fund, had received US$30 billion in capital from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange by the end of last year, executive vice president Jesse Wang (汪建熙) said.
The funds were a one-time injection and any future capital would have to be applied for separately, Wang told reporters while attending meetings yesterday for the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in Beijing.
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Chairman Lou Jiwei (樓繼偉) last month said that the sovereign fund had received additional capital after having invested almost all its cash in 2010.
CIC was set up in 2007 with US$200 billion from China’s Ministry of Finance. It had US$410 billion of assets at the end of 2010, according to its latest annual report.
“We’re going to, still in accordance with our existing asset allocation plans, expand our diversified assets in a balanced manner,” Wang said of investments after the capital injection.
EUROPE OUT
Wang also said that CIC would not be participating in efforts led by the Chinese government to help Europe resolve its debt crisis.
Such efforts, if any, would be conducted through either the People’s Bank of China, the Ministry of Finance or the IMF, Wang said.
CIC is a commercial investor and so would not be part of such aid, he said, without saying if the sovereign fund would invest independently.
“If financial assets are undervalued in a certain region and we think we can, with limited risk, get relatively good returns, we’ll invest,” Wang said. “But we won’t make decisions on a very speculative and short-term basis.”
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CIC likes emerging markets for longer-term growth prospects, Wang said.
The fund is also confident in Chinese banks and that any rebound in the bad-loans ratio for China’s lenders will not be “too big” because of ample provisions, capital and profits, he said.
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