China is expected to set up a fund worth 200-300 million yuan (US$24.9-37.1 million) to compensate futures investors in case their brokers go bankrupt or get shutdown by the government.

 

Three futures exchange located in Shanghai, Dalian and Zhengzhou will provide the fund and the State Council will establish a futures deposit supervision centre to monitor its use, according to China Central Television's report Tuesday.

 

A source from China Futures Association (CFA) said the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) is working on the establishment of the fund and it will come out any time soon.

 

"The source of the money will probably come from futures firms in the end," Chang Qing, vice-president of CFA, told China Daily. However, Chang hinted that futures firms dislike providing the money since they are not necessarily the beneficiaries.

 

The fund is likely to be managed by CSRC, Chang said. CSRC, as the initiator of the fund, however, did not confirm the news.

 

"Investors dealing with futures transactions face much more risk than other investment activities, so it is important to have a fund to protect investors," said Huang Yinghong, a researcher from University of International Business and Economics.

 

Huang pointed out that protection funds for futures investors are popular in developed countries as part of their futures markets, since investors can get compensation when their brokers go bankrupt. China's futures investors will inevitably encounter waves of restructuring and bankruptcy as its futures industry develops.

 

"It is urgent to establish such a protection fund," Huang said.

 

A fund to protect investors in the futures exchange is part of a series of measures to boost investors' confidence.

 

The State Council has already approved establishing a related fund to protect investors in the insurance, fund and securities sectors. Around 6.3 billion yuan (US$777 million) was raised to protect fund investors in September, according to China Securities Journal.

 

Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China (PBC), has said that one of the central bank's major goals in 2006 is to establish a compensatory scheme to protect investors, aiming at building stable and healthy finance and capital markets.

 

China Securities Journal reported last week that, for the first month of 2006, total turnover in China's futures market was up 33.91 percent year-on-year.

 

The futures turnover reached 1.13 trillion yuan (US$141 billion) in January, the newspaper said, citing the latest figures from the CFA.

 

The majority of futures trading in January came from white sugar and bean oil; their turnover reached 31.6 billion yuan (US$3.9 billion) and 61.67 billion yuan (US$7.6 billion) respectively, according to the association.

 

Total turnover on the Shanghai Futures Exchange accounted for 48.11 percent of the nation's total, up 2.25 percent year-on-year.

 

China's futures market is comparatively undeveloped.

 

However, rising domestic commodity prices and the increasingly internationalized Chinese economy are intensifying calls for a mature futures market.

 

(China Daily February 16, 2006)