Greater China

China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (Safe) has relaxed the rules on the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) scheme in another attempt to encourage inbound investment by offshore market participants. The move comes at a time when China has shut down the majority of its outbound investment schemes.

The stock of Chinese biopharmaceutical company BeiGene has shot up 18% on its first day of trading on the Nasdaq.

Goodbaby China Holdings has pulled its HK$1.3bn ($167.0m) Hong Kong IPO, deciding to cancel on the day it was due to price. Volatile markets and a weaker than expected book meant the leads decided to play it safe.

Markets were sceptical when the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) first launched an official RMB foreign exchange (FX) index, based on a trade-weighted basket of 13 currencies. Nearly two months later, experts are starting to give some credibility to the basket and are even proposing making it a more official part of China’s FX policy.

We in the banking industry always like to think of ourselves as charming, funny individuals. How could we not be, since most of us, bar the incomprehensible quants, earn our money by flogging stuff.

The arid landscape for equity block trades so far this year in EMEA was brightened on Wednesday by two evening sales, both with a Russian flavour and involving elite clients.

Two banks are working on separate loans for financing to back ChemChina's $43bn cash offer to acquire Swiss company Syngenta.

The wave of Chinese acquisitions of Western companies has reached a new peak, with confirmation that state-owned ChemChina has sealed the deal to buy Syngenta, the Swiss agrichemicals and seeds business, for $43bn, as China seeks to secure its food supply.

The Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) investment scheme has become the latest cross-border channel to be shut down by the Chinese regulators as they scramble to control China’s capital outflows.

Chinese biopharmaceutical company BeiGene has raised $158m from a Nasdaq IPO after increasing the size of the offer and pricing it at the top of guidance.

Investors have stayed quiet as GCL New Energy attempted a rights issue to raise as much as HK$2.5bn ($320.6m), with only one proper application made for the offer, leaving a third unaccounted for.

Integrated natural gas company, China Gas, and milk producer China Modern Dairy have become the latest Chinese borrowers to prepay foreign currency loans.