After it received regulatory approval earlier this month, Dalian Commodity Exchange said it plans to launch trading in polyvinyl chloride futures on May 25. The exchange said in a statement that minimum trading margins for PVC futures will be set at 7 percent of the contract value, with price rise and fall limits set at 5 percent of the previous day's close. China is the world's largest producer and consumer of PVC.  

The State Administration of Foreign Exchange is planning to further loosen regulation of domestic institutions investing in overseas capital markets. SAFE will raise the overseas investment quota, or the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor quota (QDII) for managed accounts, as Caijing learned from a recent SAFE meeting. Another change under consideration dates back to March, when the CSRC first allowed fund companies to invest overseas through managed accounts that were separate from the QDII program. Institutions are still not allowed to transfer their QDII quotas to other managed accounts without approval from both CSRC and SAFE, but this may change.

China appointed He Jianxiong as its new representative to the International Monetary Fund’s Executive Board to replace Ge Huayong, who has been in this position since October 2006. Ge was appointed director of the personnel department at China’s central bank.

China's external financial assets stood at US$2.9 trillion at the end of 2008, up 23 percent year on year. The country's external liabilities totaled US$ 1.4 trillion, up 17 percent. Reserve assets totaled US$ 1.9 trillion, accounting for 67 percent of the total, against just under US$ 1.6 trillion at end-2007. Direct investment abroad, investment in foreign equities and other investments totaled US$ 169.4 billion, US$ 251.9 billion and US$ 532.8 billion.