China scrapped a ceiling on investments by overseas sovereign wealth funds and central banks in its capital markets, part of government efforts to encourage long-term foreign ownership and shore up slumping equities.
Sovereign wealth funds, central banks and monetary authorities can now exceed the US$1 billion limit that still applies to other qualified foreign institutional investors, according to revised regulations posted on Friday on the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange’s Web site.
The Shanghai Composite Index jumped the most since October, 2009, on Friday after the head of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority said on Thursday that China may relax or abolish a rule that requires renminbi-qualified foreign institutional investors (QFII) to keep most of their funds in bonds.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission has cut trading fees, pushed companies to increase dividends and allowed trust companies to buy equities since Guo Shuqing (郭樹清) took over as chairman last year.
Introducing more long-term funds from abroad will help improve market confidence, promote stable growth in capital markets and provide “robust” investment returns to domestic investors, the regulator said in May, a month after the government more than doubled the total quota for QFIIs to US$80 billion from US$30 billion.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite has lost 2.2 percent this year, while the MSCI China Index of mostly Hong Kong-traded shares, open to overseas investors, has gained 18 percent as US bond purchases spurred foreign funds to pour money into emerging markets.
QFIIs can repatriate their principal and investment returns after a lock-up period ends, though the monthly net remittances cannot exceed 20 percent of their total onshore assets as of the previous year, according to Friday’s rules.
Open-ended China funds can remit funds on a weekly basis under the new regulation, compared with monthly in the previous version announced in 2009.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Norges Bank, Government of Singapore Investment Corp and Temasek Holdings Pte’s Fullerton Fund Management Co have all reached the US$1 billion limit as of Nov. 30, with QFIIs’ approved quotas totaling US$36.04 billion, according to SAFE, the currency regulator.
Foreign investors can only invest in capital markets through QFIIs.
Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund was applying for a QFII license and a US$5 billion quota to invest in China, the China Securities Journal said on its Web site in June, citing Qatari Energy and Industry Minister Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained