(12 July 2005 – China) Foreign banks have taken advantage of China opening up its debt markets with the number of participants trading in the country’s bond market growing to 23 in the first half of 2005, up from 14 banks a year before.Despite the level of trading growing by more than five percent on the previous year, trading by foreign banks only accounted for some 0.73 percent of overall trading volume in the first half of 2005.
Foreign banks accounted for 0.26 percent of overall trading volume in the corresponding period last year.
HSBC, Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered are among the most active foreign trading banks in the Chinese market. Deutsche’s Shanghai branch traded some 44.5 billion yuan (US$5.28 billion) in the first half of 2005.
Trading in Standard Chartered’s Shanghai operation totalled 18.15 billion yuan in the fist six months of this year, up 46 times on last year’s trading volume.