Fang told reporters on the sidelines of the Lujiazui Forum in Shanghai on Friday that net inflows to the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges had reached 120 billion yuan (US$16.8 billion) so far this year, compared to 85 billion yuan for the whole of 2022.
He added that foreign capital will continue to pour into mainland-listed equities as long as China’s economy and companies can continue to generate handsome investment returns, despite souring US-China relations.
“The CSRC has constantly and actively been communicating with global investors, shedding light on what has been happening in China,” Fang said. “I believe the link [between China’s stock market and global investors] can be strengthened if we can get our [communication] jobs well done.”
The senior regulator’s remarks are in line with recent efforts by Beijing to bolster capital flows into the country’s US$11.5 trillion stock market, as policymakers grapple with stumbling growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
Top Chinese officials have recently made efforts to head off further economic decoupling with the West, extending an olive branch to global corporate executives including Citigroup’s chief executive Jane Fraser, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook. These leading executives have also been keen to re-engage with China, a huge market for them, following the country’s emergence from Covid-19 lockdown measures.
