BEIJING, April 8 (Xinhua) -- Global investors traded record volumes of Chinese bonds in the first quarter amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, according to China Securities Journal.
During the first quarter, overseas institutional investors' net holdings in China's interbank bond market rose 59.7 billion yuan (about 8.47 billion U.S. dollars). By the end of March, a total of 822 overseas institutions held bonds worth 2.26 trillion yuan, said the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank.
Market volatility in overseas financial markets shook up the bonds investments, but yuan-dominated bonds remained relatively stable, said the newspaper.
At the end of March, the total amount of yuan bonds owned by overseas institutions under the depository of the China Central Depository & Clearing Co. rose 29 percent year on year to around 1.96 trillion yuan.
Meanwhile, Chinese bonds have been officially included in the Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Index (BGAI) and J.P. Morgan's Government Bond Index-Emerging Markets (GBI-EM).
A slew of measures have been taken to deepen the opening up of China's bond market. China scrapped investment quota limits for qualified foreign institutional investors and renminbi qualified foreign institutional investors, which will make it more convenient for foreign investors to participate in the domestic financial market.
