China nearly doubles the ceiling on foreign investment in its financial markets

• The Chinese securities regulator announced on Friday that overall quota under the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor programme has been raised to $150bn from $80bn
• Also announced that foreign institutions holding renminbi in London, Singapore and Taiwan can now directly invest these funds in China (previously Hong Kong was the only offshore market with the right to directly invest renminbi in China). This should broaden the appeal of the yuan in overseas markets

This is a further step on the road to opening up China’s financial markets.