Foreign investors contribute RMB246.4 bln net bond purchases in China's interbank market in July

BEIJING, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- Foreign institutional investors contributed 246.4 billion yuan of net bond buying in China's interbank bond market in July, up 144 percent over June, according to statistics released by China Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS) Thursday.

They purchased 571.3 billion yuan of bonds and sold 324.9 billion yuan of bonds in interbank bond market last month.

Their total cash bond turnover reached 896.2 billion yuan, up 25 percent month on month and accounting for about two percent of the aggregate monthly cash bond turnover in interbank bond market in July.

By different accesses, turnover of foreign institutional investors entered into the interbank bond market via settlement agents stood at 450.2 billion yuan and that via the Bond Connect program was 446.0 billion yuan, with corresponding net monthly bond purchases at 170.7 billion yuan and 75.7 billion yuan. Bond Connect is a program between the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong allowing investors to trade bonds on each other's interbank bond markets.

Among all the related foreign buyers in July, 461 foreign institutions entered via settlement agents and 574 of them entered via the Bond Connect program.

By the end of July, foreign institutional investors held in total 2.67 trillion yuan of bonds in China's interbank bond market, 165.0 billion yuan more than the end-June figure and making up 2.8 percent of all the outstanding bonds on China's bond market by July, showed statistics with Bond Connect Company Limited (BCCL), a joint venture established by CFETS and HKEX to support the Bond Connect related trading services.

There were 2,068 foreign institutions approved to enter China's interbank bond market via the Bond Connect by the end of July, an increase of 60 ones over June and more than 70 ones of them completed their first transactions, according to BCCL.

From January to July, total transactions via the Bond Connect numbered 32,876 with turnover at 2.778 trillion yuan, BCCL data told. (Edited by Duan Jing with Xinhua Silk Road, duanjing@xinhua.org)