It was reported in Hong Kong today that a People’s Bank of China official, Wen Wei Po, expects the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) scheme introduced late last year to be refined during the course of 2003. He added that the QFII scheme might be widened into a General Foreign Institutional Investor (GFII) scheme, which would open the Chinese market up still further.
To date, the People’s Bank of China has approved the applications of a total of nine custodian banks wishing to become custodians to QFIIs. The applications are still subject to approval by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) General Foreign Institutional Investor (GFII) scheme.