Banks' Chinese bond holdings surge

Updated: 2011-11-11 07:37

By Henry Sanderson (China Daily)

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BEIJING - International banks' investment in Chinese bonds may have swelled to more than 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) as the government takes steps to ease currency controls.

Holdings of China's interbank market debt outside the nation rose to at least 10 billion yuan at the end of September from zero in August 2010, HSBC Holdings PLC estimated in a report this month, using data compiled by Chinabond, the nation's clearinghouse. Some 13 billion yuan of bonds are held by commercial banks, excluding domestic institutions and local units of foreign banks, according to the data.

"The regulators are going to open the door wider for foreign banks to invest in China's bond market," said Dorris Chen, an analyst at BNP Paribas SA in Shanghai on Tuesday. "China needs more market participants to diversify the risk concentration in the Chinese banking system."

Global demand for China's yuan has grown as the government allows greater use of the currency in trade and as leaders from the United States and Europe complain that the currency is kept artificially low to promote exports. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) has let at least 31 overseas banks or foreign units of Chinese lenders invest in onshore bonds, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System. It didn't reveal how much each bank could invest.

Five-year government bonds in China yield 3.39 percent, compared with 1.7 percent of similar-maturity debt sold in Hong Kong and the 1.85 percent yield on global sovereign bonds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

An official at Chinabond, who didn't give his name, said he couldn't reveal what banks the data referred to, when contacted on Tuesday.

The PBOC said in a statement posted on its website in August 2010 that it would allow banks involved in cross-border yuan settlement in Hong Kong and Macao to invest in the interbank market. It didn't reveal how much each bank could invest. China is taking steps to allow international investors greater access to its domestic market. In August, Vice-Premier Li Keqiang pledged a 20 billion yuan quota for qualified Hong Kong-based companies to invest in the Chinese mainland securities. The program will be implemented "very soon", said Hong Kong Monetary Authority chief Norman Chan on Nov 4.

"The most pressing issue for investors is how to enable offshore renminbi (yuan) to return back to China in the form of investments," said Shenghua Hu, the head of markets for China at Citigroup Inc, on Wednesday. "Foreign individuals and institutions have been amassing a lot of deposits but there are limited ways to invest them profitably."

Holdings of China's interbank market debt by non-domestic investors is at least 12 billion yuan, according to Shen Jianguang, a Hong Kong-based economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd.

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