中国企业提高Yuan Mutual Funds in Hong Kong

Chinese New Year officially ends this week, but for Hong Kong–based Charles Wang, chief executive officer of Chinese asset manager E Fund Management (HK), the weeklong holiday was not restful at all.

That is because he and his team have been busy preparing for the coming launch of a 1.1 billon yuan fund, which will be among the first batch of renminbi-denominated mutual funds approved by the Chinese government to be raised in Hong Kong.

With the new fund raisings, E Fund’s assets under management double to nearly $400 million, which is not bad considering that the Guangzhou-based asset manager set up shop in Hong Kong in 2008. “We see explosive growth in the coming few years,” Wang says, adding that the experiment, also known as RMB Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor scheme (RQFII), likely will be expanded with more quotas given later this year.

E Fund is among a group of 21 mainland fund managers and brokers that are kick-starting a Chinese-government experiment allowing Chinese financial services companies to raise yuan funds in Hong Kong for investing in mainland markets.

该计划是中国人民币国际化努力的最新补充。中国当局已批准了21家公司在香港筹集了20亿元人民币。

The launch of the new RQFII mutual funds comes only a few months after Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang announced the program during a speech at the University of Hong Kong in August.

香港的离岸人民币市场今年可能会加热。来自中国证券监督管理委员会的官员在1月中旬在香港举行的亚洲财务论坛上宣布，他们将鼓励中国公司在香港开始寻求人民币率的初始公开发行。

“Hong Kong is an axis of capital,” E Fund’s Wang says, adding his RQFII mutual fund will have a fixed-income theme, investing primarily in Chinese corporate and government bonds. “Many global players want access to capital — to Chinese capital. Chinese financial players want access to global capital. Hong Kong offers a competitive platform for Chinese asset managers as well as global players.”

Demand in Hong Kong for exposure to Chinese bonds and equities comes despite the fact that China’s CSI 300 index fell 16 percent in 2011, the result of the government’s efforts to cool the economy and to prevent speculative investments, particularly in real estate.

Despite fears of a “hard landing,” Chinese authorities announced on January 17 that the country’s GDP grew 9.2 percent in 2011, down from 10.4 percent a year earlier, which is not bad considering that most developed markets did not grow at all and are on cusp of falling into recession again. China, most economists believe, will slow down in 2012 but still will maintain a minimum of 8 percent GDP growth.

在香港乐观中心的中心是中国的意志，使城市成为主要海上人民币贸易中心。这为当地银行提供了提供各种人民币联系产品的机会，包括人民币计价债券和资金，这被证明是全球资产管理人员的有吸引力的投资选择。中国的实验导致引入香港各种新投资工具，针对中国和全球资产管理人员。

例如，人民币债券问题 - 又称DiMsum债券问题 - 2011年占上1000亿元，2010年近360亿元的三倍;据香港金融管理局统计，银行存款占地6000亿元，从2011年初的2590亿元人民币。

尽管中国现在是世界第二大经济体，但由于政府通过将全球资产管理人员限制为称为合格的外国机构投资计划或QFII的配额，因此仍然难以投资中国的资本市场。亚博赞助欧冠

So far, only 135 QFII licenses have been handed out with funds totaling $21.6 billion, less than 1 percent of the market cap of China’s stock markets, according to Shanghai-based research house Z-Ben Advisors. In a move to show that they are loosening up, however, Chinese authorities handed out 14 QFII licenses in December alone, equivalent to the total number handed out in the previous 11 months.

中国也允许更多自己的金融服务公司在香港扩大运营。到目前为止，香港有十大中国资产管理人员，Z-Ben Advisors的分析师Tony Skriba表示，他们只有三个距离内地当局的监管批准。共有15名中国经纪商还在香港设立子公司。

A total of 29 mainland brokers and asset managers have been granted licenses by authorities to set up “Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor” funds (QDII) in Hong Kong, which allow them to raise capital from mainland Chinese investors to buy Hong Kong equities.

“Despite rapid development and improvement of onshore financial markets, many Chinese firms feel they are unable to gain global experience unless they head to Hong Kong,” Skriba says. “Hong Kong is also close enough to their comfort zone — at least in investment expertise — that it makes a natural first step,” says Skriba, adding that most Chinese brokers and asset managers still specialize in offering China-themed products to global investors through H-shares.