Foreign fund managers eye growth in China

Foreign fund management firms in China expect sharp future growth thanks to the country's recent move to open up more channels for managing funds, a survey showed Monday. Thirty foreign fund management companies, including UBS SDIC, HSBC Jintrust and Morgan Stanley Huaxin, said they expect to see an average growth of 60 percent in their assets under management by 2014, global consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said. PwC said it conducted a poll between April and June 2011 by interviewing chief executive officers and senior executives of the 30 firms. "(Chinese Vice Premier) Li Keqiang's recent announcement of the launch of the RQFII (Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors) program has had everybody excited," Keith Lie, PwC's Asset Management Partner for Hong Kong, said in a press conference. Renminbi is the official name of the Chinese currency yuan. During his visit to Hong Kong earlier this month, the Chinese vice premier said Beijing would soon allow foreign investors to buy mainland securities using yuan up to an initial quota of 20 billion yuan (US$3.1 billion). It is seen as a move aimed at giving foreign investors holding the yuan an avenue to invest, thus promoting the currency's international use. Currently, investors in the offshore yuan market in Hong Kong can only put their holdings into yuan deposits or yuan-denominated bonds that yield relatively lower returns. The gradual internationalization of the yuan will give optimism to the foreign fund management firms, making them "want to stick it out for now," PwC explained. In 2010, the foreign firms held a 47 percent market share with 1.18 trillion yuan in assets under management, compared to a 53 percent market share held by domestic players with 1.32 trillion yuan.