China is working on ways to ease restrictions on capital accounts, including lifting a ban on emigrants' transfer of legitimate assets abroad, a high-level foreign exchange official has said.

According to a document made available to Xinhua on Monday, Ma Delun, deputy director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), said that China is also discussing lifting bans on transfer of legacy abroad by non-Chinese residents, further opening up capital markets, doing away with restrictions on cross-border transfer of foreign exchange capital by multinationals.

Ma also disclosed other measures being considered to further open China's capital market, including establishing a qualified domestic institutional investor (QDII) system and allowing social security funds to invest abroad.

The QDII system would allow domestic institutional investors to invest in capital markets abroad.

China has few restrictions on nearly half of 43 categories of capital market dealings as defined by the International Monetary Fund, said the official.

(Xinhua News Agency June 1, 2004)