China's State Security Fund (SSF) Council is seeking trustees to
help its overseas investment operations, involving up to US$1.1
billion this year.
The council said potential trustees that hold legal title to the
capital in order to administer it for SSF should have the capacity
for secure storage of SSF's overseas investment assets.
The eligible trustees should have more than US$5 billion in
capital or the equivalent in currency during the immediate fiscal
year, or US$500 billion worth of capital under its trusteeship.
Potential trustees' ratings must be from internationally
recognized ratings institutions in the past three years and must be
a rating of A or above. They should be established and registered
outside China to be eligible, it said.
The government gave the go-ahead for the SSF to invest overseas
as of May 1 after the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Labour
and Social Security, and the People's Bank of China, the country's
central bank, approved provisional regulations governing the
overseas investment of the fund last month.
The government established the fund in 2000 as a strategic
reserve for its ageing population, and its total assets were valued
at 201.02 billion yuan (US$25.1 billion) by the end of last
year.
The fund mainly comes from budgetary allocation from the
Ministry of Finance, and revenue from sales of shares in
State-owned firms listed overseas.
Under the investment plan unveiled last month up to US$800
million will be used for share investment in overseas markets while
up to US$300 million will be invested overseas in products with
fixed returns.
Overseas investment will help the fund to expand its range of
investments, diversify risks and maintain and increase the value of
the fund, said a statement from the SSF.
(China Daily May 4, 2006)