Financial opening-up gains momentum

Jing Ulrich, vice-chairman of global banking and Asia Pacific for investment bank JP Morgan Chase& Co, said China now has a clear strategy to open up its financial markets.

"These moves are important and we welcome the government's efforts to further open up its financial markets. We believe that they will have positive implications for both China and the international community. In the past, China's capital markets were not very accessible to foreign investors," she said.

George Magnus, an associate at the University of Oxford China Centre and former chief economist at investment bank UBS, said the various measures taken by the Chinese government in recent months will benefit the country.

"They have all raised capital inflows into China, and entailed foreign investors taking more and more China risk," he said.

"China's opening-up comes at a time when the country is looking increasingly to foreign capital inflows, especially US dollars, to alleviate balance of payments and other financing constraints. There is no apparent intent to remove or lower controls on capital outflows."

China has been subject to tight controls on capital outflows since 2015, when there was speculation against the yuan after an adjustment to the exchange rate mechanism.

Some observers argue that it is difficult to have an open financial system without a fully open capital account.