China has approved the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to invest alongside western blue-chip banks in Chinese shares and bonds.

Founded in 2000, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has an endowment of about US$27 billion.

It concentrates on areas such as the search for treatments and cures for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria and has set up large projects for treating and preventing AIDS in Botswana and India.

The foundation's involvement in China to date has included grants to promote health policy research in the country and donations to an earthquake relief fund.

The charitable foundation has actually joined China's so-called Qualified Financial Institutional Investor scheme that aims to attract foreign money into the country's capital markets.

A dozen overseas financial institutions including Credit Suisse First Boston, Merrill Lynch and Highland Drive Baptist Church have put their money into mainland stocks under this scheme. 
 
(CRI.com July 21, 2004)