BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Overseas institutional investors held around 3.95 trillion yuan of bonds on the interbank bond market by the end of February, reported Xinhua Finance on Monday.
The report citing data released by Shanghai Head Office of the People's Bank of China on March 15 said their overall bond holdings accounted for 2.8 percent of the total outstanding bonds on the interbank bond market.
Their holdings were comprised mainly of 2.33 trillion yuan of Treasury bonds and 0.83 trillion yuan of policy bank bonds and the two types of products made up respectively 59.0 percent and 21.0 percent of their aggregate holdings on the interbank bond market.
By the end of February, there were 1,128 overseas institutions trading bonds on the interbank bond market, with entering of three newcomers in last month.
Among them, 556 overseas institutions transacted via the China Interbank Bond Market Direct scheme, 823 ones via the Bond Connect program and 251 ones via both of the two channels.
In the past six months, the narrowed yield spreads between Chinese and U.S. government bonds of the same terms in certain periods, rebounding exchange rates of Renminbi, and boosts from the domestic macroeconomic recovery and related supporting policies all helped spur purchases of Renminbi-denominated bonds by overseas institutions, said Zhou Maohua, researcher with the financial market department of China Everbright Bank.
From September 2023 to February this year, overseas institutions kept raising their bond holdings on interbank bond market, with respective monthly balances at 3.19 trillion yuan, 3.24 trillion yuan, 3.49 trillion yuan, 3.67 trillion yuan, 3.87 trillion yuan and 3.95 trillion yuan.
In February, overseas institutions contributed about 1.27 trillion yuan of cash bond turnover on the interbank bond market, with the daily average at 70.5 billion yuan. (Edited by Duan Jing with Xinhua Silk Road, duanjing@xinhua.org)
A single purchase
