Chinese premier Li Keqiang told leaders from Central and Eastern European countries that China would stay on the path of reform and opening up, with more measures on the way, the state council stated on July 8. Li travelled to Germany on July 8, where he is scheduled to meet with chancellor Angela Merkel.
He also stated that the China-CEE assembly, an inter-governmental group, would stay open and inclusive in pursuing cooperation, adding that the group supported further progress on European integration.
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The China Securities Regulatory Commission has issued draft rules that would allow foreigners who are working in China, as well as overseas-based employees of A-share listed companies with equity incentives, to open A-share trading accounts in the Mainland, state media reported on July 8.
"The move is significant in expanding the financing channel of the stock market, optimising the structure of the capital market and lifting the level of opening up and internationalisation of the capital market," the CSRC was quoted as saying.
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Tradeweb, the trading platform that supports the Bond Connect scheme, said over 6,000 electronic transactions involving Chinese onshore bonds had been completed on the platform since the launch of the scheme in July 2017.
Tradeweb is now working with CFETS, China's interbank trading platform, and Bond Connect Company, a JV that manages the Bond Connect link, to allow the pre-allocation of block orders starting in mid-July.
"Accessing the Chinese domestic bond market through Tradeweb will enable us to send a trade inquiry simultaneously to multiple dealers, which has the potential to improve the price discovery process,” said Kenneth Topping, a managing director at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, in a July 9 press release.
Average daily trading volume hit Rmb6.8bn, five times July 2017 levels. The platform's most active trading day was June 11 of this year, when Rmb9bn in notional volume exchanged hands.
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BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, finalised the launch of its first privately-offered onshore equity fund through its wholly foreign-owned enterprise, the firm announced on July 7. The fund, called China A-Share Opportunities Private Fund 1, is aimed at institutional investors and high net worth individuals (HNWIs).
BlackRock has already launched two Qualified Domestic Limited Partnership (QDLP) products for Chinese HNWIs.
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The RMB rebounded against the dollar in morning trading on Monday, gaining 0.2% from the previous close to 6.6287 as of 10.30am, based on Bloomberg data.
Xie Dongming, an economist at OCBC, said in a July 9 report that the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) is unlikely to go to open war with short sellers, as it has in the past. PBoC governor Yi Gang repeated a verbal commitment to currency stability last week.
"One of the key lessons learned from the 2015 experience is that excessive intervention is not necessary and sometimes could be dangerous with the sharp decline of FX reserves,” said OCBC’s Xie. “As such, we think [the] PBoC is likely to be less interventionist this round."
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In a further signal that the capital outflow tap has not been shut as a result of recent depreciation pressure on the RMB, China added $1.8bn to the total qualified domestic institutional investor quota in June, according to CEIC data. The total quota was $103.3bn across 140 open-ended funds.
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The Reserve Bank of India is said to have granted Bank of China a licence to open a branch in India, according to a July 4 report in local media. The article noted that Indian prime minister Narendra Modi had committed to Chinese president Xi Jinping to allow Bank of China to set up branches in India during talks held on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit last month.
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Bitcoin trading denominated in RMB has fallen to less than 1% of the global total, down from a peak of 90%, state media reported on July 6, quoting a PBoC statement. China has already barred initial coin offerings, and the regulator has pushed 85 ICO trading platforms and 88 virtual currency exchanges to offer "zero-risk" exits for investors, the report noted.