(Yicai Global) Dec. 4 -- The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) plans to ease restrictions on foreign equity stakes in futures companies, allowing foreign investors to directly or indirectly own up to 51 percent of securities companies, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted CSRC Deputy Head Fang Xinghai as saying.

The cap will be phased out over three years, Fang said at the 13th China (Shenzhen) International Derivatives Forum.

An efficient futures market stabilizes and improves corporate earnings, promotes the healthy consolidation of core companies as well as upstream and downstream firms, and helps optimize and upgrade industries, Fang said.

Such a market should have sophisticated futures and options product systems and fair, credible, market-based futures prices that the markets can easily and efficiently transmit to companies, he said.

China has listed 27 products, representing 49 percent of the 55 futures products available in the country, in the past five years. China introduced soybean meal and white sugar options in the first half of this year, signaling that the country's futures and derivatives market has entered a new development stage.

The Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange has allowed traders to buy and sell cotton yarn futures since August, providing risk management tools for textile companies along the industrial chain and fostering cotton price reform.

Crude oil futures, which have been in the pipeline for years, are in the final stage before listing, while work for listing apple futures is nearly complete. Research and development of pulp, red date, No. 20 standard rubber, two-year treasury bond, live hog, urea and copper options is well underway.