Roadshow promotes Chinese investment opportunities

      Driven by Chinese companies' high-quality development and the government's policy support, China's equity market, with its current low valuation, provides huge investment opportunities, senior officials and executives told overseas investors in London on Thursday.

      In the opening remarks to the roadshow on new trends for A-share investment, Fang Xinghai, vice-chairman of the China Security Regulatory Commission, said: "High-quality growth remains the number one priority of the Chinese government. So let's make no mistake about that. Capital markets are fundamental to such growth."

      He listed three new growth drivers for China's economy – excellence in manufacturing, huge domestic consumption potential, and increasing exports to developing countries, and highlighted that in April the Chinese government issued a set of policies on strengthening supervision, preventing risks, and promoting high-quality development of the capital markets.

      "A very significant policy is to encourage listed companies to pay more dividends," said Fang, admitting that Chinese listed companies traditionally have not paid enough dividends, even for those profit-making companies.

      "We are now encouraging them to pay more dividends. This should very much enhance the investment value of Chinese stocks going forward," he said.

      Yang Liu, deputy director-general of the financial stability bureau at the People's Bank of China, or PBOC, said the central bank has conducted a flexible, moderate, and targeted monetary policy with increased efforts in counter-cyclical adjustment to support the recovery of the country's economy.

      At the beginning of this year, the PBOC lowered the required reserve ratio by 0.5 percentage points, releasing over 1 trillion yuan of liquidity, and encouraged financial institutions to steadily support credit. In February, it cut the benchmark lending rate by 25 basis points, the largest one-time rate reduction in years.

      "The PBOC will continue to implement a prudent monetary policy, and maintain reasonable and sufficient liquidity, ensuring that the scale of social financing and money supply match the expected economic growth and the price level," said Yang.

      Around 100 representatives from various investment institutions attended the roadshow, and listened to representatives of the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange briefing on the development, potential, and investment opportunities within the Chinese capital market.

      In the panel discussions, senior executives from 16 listed companies, including CITIC Securities, China Unicom, and China Vanke, introduced their latest innovations and future corporate strategies.

      Many investors at the roadshow commented that the messages from the regulators and companies are very encouraging, especially the government's emphasis on ensuring benefits for investors.

      Some have also expressed optimism toward the Chinese equity market. "For every country, their market experiences ups and downs, and when the valuation is low, there are opportunities," said one long-time China investor.