A reinvigorated stock market has driven the creation of a record 58 new mutual investment funds in China since the beginning of the year, with a record issuance volume of 222.555 billion yuan (US$28 billion).

 

On Thursday, the Dacheng Wealth Management Fund announced that its contract with investors had started to take effect, pushing the number of funds set up since January this year to 58, one more than the total number of funds established in 2005.

 

Meanwhile another ten funds are in the issuance process and more are waiting for government approval.

 

Figures show that since China established its first open-end fund in 2001, it now has 222 open-end funds. In 2001 only three new funds were set up followed by 14 in 2002. But over the next three years the figure rose to 39, 51 and 57.

 

The issuance scale of each mutual investment fund has been also expanding. The issuance volume of the 58 newly-established funds this year totaled 222.555 billion yuan, more than twice the amount of money raised by the issuance of 57 funds last year, which stood at 100.279 billion yuan.

 

The lucrative A-share market has resulted in mutual investment funds preferring stock investment this year.

 

Since the beginning of 2006, 66.14 percent of the total issuance volume belonged to stock-oriented funds, but in 2005, 57.68 percent of the total were contributed by funds focusing on the currency and bond markets.

 

China's stock market began to recover in 2005 after two years of gloom, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rebounding from an all time low of 998 points to around 1,600 points in just one year.

 

It is believed that the recovery is mainly a result of the smooth reform transforming non-tradable state-owned shares in listed firms into fully tradable shares. Most of the listed firms are restructured state-owned enterprises.

 

The bullish market means that mutual funds which had invested heavily in the stock market have performed better.

 

Interim reports from 241 open and close-end funds managed by 50 firms in China showed they made record profits of 51.14 billion yuan in the first six months of this year.

 

(Xinhua News Agency September 15, 2006)