Foreign investors will have greater access to China financial mkts

SHANGHAI, Apr 11 (AFP): China said on Wednesday it would allow foreign investors' greater access to its stock markets and promised that other previously announced financial reforms would come into effect within months in its latest conciliatory signals amid US trade tensions.
China's securities regulator said foreign investors would be allowed to trade a greater volume of shares on Chinese stock markets through existing programmes linking Hong Kong's bourse with mainland exchanges, and also will "strive" to establish a similar link between Shanghai and London this year.
Central Bank Governor Yi Gang also said China would move ahead with plans to remove limits on foreign shareholdings in Chinese financial institutions.
Foreign firms will be allowed to own as much as 51 per cent of joint ventures in the securities, funds and futures industries, up from the current 49 per cent, Yi told the Boao Forum for Asia in southern China.
All limits are to be removed in three years, the government had said previously.
Foreign ownership restrictions in Chinese banks and financial asset management firms also will be removed.
The foreign-ownership reforms were first announced in November during a state visit by US President Donald Trump, but the latest announcements appeared to set a firmer timetable for implementation, with Yi quoted saying they would commence "in the coming months".
The latest promises came a day after President Xi Jinping pledged at the same forum that China would lower car tariffs this year and take other steps to open the world's number two economy "wider and wider".
His comments addressed major US complaints in a simmering trade row that has seen both sides threaten retaliatory measures.
Both Yi and the China Securities Regulatory Commission said the allowable daily two-way trading volume between Hong Kong and mainland China's two exchanges would each be increased fourfold to 94 billion yuan ($15 billion), effective May 01.