China

China's onshore dollar bond market could provide an alternative to quota-based outbound investment schemes, allowing banks a novel way of deploying their dollar deposits, according to a senior trader at BNP Paribas.

The Panda issuance streak continued last week as logistics company GLP sold its third Panda bond in as many weeks, taking home Rmb1.2bn ($190.7m) from China's onshore market.

Chinese property developers are rushing to sell dollar bonds as momentum picks up and the market stabilises. While heavy supply is weighing on investors’ minds, their familiarity with the sector and issuers’ willingness to pay up may be able to safeguard the deals.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China’s Singapore branch aims to underwrite IPOs of Chinese companies in the city-state after receiving accreditation as an issue manager from the Singapore Exchange.

China plans to turn Hainan into its latest trade laboratory, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns countries joining the Belt and Road Initiative against accumulating excessive debt, and the securities watchdog says it will allow international participants to trade onshore iron ore futures by early May.

Chinese president Xi Jinping delivered the message everybody wanted to hear: despite the trade spat with the US, China will keep opening up its markets to foreign firms. But the speech was light on substance. The remarks feel like more of China’s vintage ‘stall and delay’ strategy rather than the much-touted ‘new era’. That could backfire, especially since Donald Trump seems hell-bent on making his aggressive trade policy towards China a reality.

Chinese real estate companies Cifi Holdings Group Co and Fujian Yango Group Co rolled out three year dollar bonds on Thursday, paying investors hefty premiums to get their deals done.

Yuexiu Property Company priced a two-tranche dollar bond on Thursday but decided to ditch a potential offshore renminbi deal. Separately, Peking University Founder Group Co returned with another bond with a keepwell structure for $425m.

China rejects suggestions that it is speeding up liberalisation due to US pressure, regulators tout the rebooting of outbound investment channels, and China International Capital Corporation (CICC) and KraneShares make an ETF tracking Chinese internet companies available in renminbi.

China-based Daqo New Energy Corp, which makes silicon wafers for solar cells, has bagged $110m after pricing its follow-on of American Depository Shares (ADS) at the bottom of guidance.

China Jinmao Holdings hit the Panda market for the first time in 2018 on Wednesday, raising Rmb3bn ($476.9m). The three year bond priced just one basis point above a Panda of the same tenor sold by another real estate issuer a week earlier.

Bank of China (BOC) returned to the bond market with a Belt and Road blockbuster this week, raising around $3.2bn from a multi-tranche, multi-currency deal. Addison Gong reports.