China has taken a step towards opening up its capital market by giving a western asset manager unprecedented freedom to invest in stocks and bonds.
Ashmore Group has become the first company outside Hong Kong to announce that it has been granted a licence to invest directly in China’s $3.4tn domestic equity market and its $4.7tn bond market.
The deal between Ashmore, listed on London’s FTSE 250, and the China Securities Regulatory Commission is the first case of a British company benefiting from an agreement announced in Beijing by George Osborne, the UK chancellor, in October. China granted the UK an allocation of Rmb80bn ($13bn), out of the total of Rmb180bn, under the new Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors programme.