(Yicai Global) Nov. 29 -- Shanghai has published a new version of its guidebook aimed at helping foreign assets managers do business in China and better understand the city and its asset management sector.

The third version of the Shanghai Guidebook for Overseas Asset Management Institutions was released at the 2022 Shanghai Global Asset Management Forum today. The document contains updates and supplements on policies, regulations, industry data, and innovative practices

The guidebook also covers changes in Shanghai’s opening-up policy. In the last two years, the city government introduced 172 reforms covering market ecosystem, government affairs, investment, foreign business, innovation, regulatory and legal environments, enterprise full-cycle services, and regional cooperation. Connect programs between China and the overseas interbank bond market, the foreign exchange market, and equity and futures markets were also included in the guidebook.

In these two years, the China Securities Regulatory Commission formulated several provisions regulating public fund managers and the custody, investment restrictions, and operation of funds, the distribution of securities funds, and the management of personnel and other practitioners

The document also updated information on Shanghai’s financial institutions. The number of licensed financial firms operating in the city as of the end of last year was 1,707, around 30 percent of which were foreign-funded. Seventeen of the world’s top 20 international asset managers had set up business entities in Shanghai.

As of last year, more than 80 prominent international asset managers had enrolled in Shanghai’s Qualified Foreign Limited Partners pilot scheme, and over 50 domestic asset managers had joined the Qualified Domestic Limited Partners pilot scheme. Twenty-nine of the 33 wholly foreign-owned private fund managers registered with the Asset Management Association of China were based in the city

The QFLP pilot scheme had made actual investments of CNY42.3 billion (USD5.9 billion) as of last August, nearly 60 percent of which went into the biopharmaceutical, infrastructure, environmental protection, internet and information technology, and high-end manufacturing sectors.

As of the end of June, Shanghai-based public fund managers had total asset under management of CNY9.83 trillion (USD1.37 trillion) in 3,793 public fund products, while the 4,462 private fund managers registered in the city handled 37,812 funds with a total AUM of CNY5.07 trillion.

As one of the most open cities in China, Shanghai prides itself on its pro-market practices, law-based business environment, and a high concentration of domestic and foreign-invested financial institutions and talent. It has made pioneering and milestone progress in investment and trade facilitation and liberalization, as well as in financial opening-up and innovation.

With the guidebook, the metropolis welcomes overseas asset management firms to do business in China, and Shanghai in particular, and to build synergy with domestic asset management firms to provide a richer selection of services to Chinese investors and enjoy a share of the opportunities from China’s economic growth.

Editor: Futura Costaglione