This report provides updates on the bond market in Hong Kong, China since the publication of the ASEAN+3 Bond Market Guide 2016: Hong Kong, China. It also highlights those changes and developments that have a connection to the bond market of the People’s Republic of China. The ASEAN+3 Bond Market Guide series provides member-specific information on the investment climate, rules, laws, opportunities, and characteristics of local bond markets in Asia and the Pacific. It aims to help bond market issuers, investors, and financial intermediaries understand the local context and to encourage greater participation in the region’s rapidly developing bond markets.

China’s bond market is destined to play an increasingly important role, both at home and abroad. And the inclusion of the country’s bonds in global indexes will be a milestone for its financial market integration, bringing big opportunities as well as challenges for policymakers and investors alike. This calls for a good understanding of China’s bond market structure, its unique characteristics, and areas where reforms are needed. This volume comprehensively analyzes the different segments of China’s bond market, from sovereign, policy bank, and credit bonds, to the rapidly growing local government bond market. It also covers bond futures, green bonds, and asset-backed securities, as well as China’s offshore market, which has played a major role in onshore market development.

A comprehensive, in-depth, and authoritative guide to China's financial system The Chinese economy is one of the most important in the world, and its success is driven in large part by its financial system. Though closely scrutinized, this system is poorly understood and vastly different than those in the West. The Handbook of China’s Financial System will serve as a standard reference guide and invaluable resource to the workings of this critical institution. The handbook looks in depth at the central aspects of the system, including banking, bonds, the stock market, asset management, the pension system, and financial technology. Each chapter is written by leading experts in the field, and the contributors represent a unique mix of scholars and policymakers, many with firsthand knowledge of setting and carrying out Chinese financial policy. The first authoritative volume on China’s financial system, this handbook sheds new light on how it developed, how it works, and the prospects and direction of significant reforms to come. Contributors include Franklin Allen, Marlene Amstad, Kaiji Chen, Tuo Deng, Hanming Fang, Jin Feng, Tingting Ge, Kai Guo, Zhiguo He, Yiping Huang, Zhaojun Huang, Ningxin Jiang, Wenxi Jiang, Chang Liu, Jun Ma, Yanliang Mao, Fan Qi, Jun Qian, Chenyu Shan, Guofeng Sun, Xuan Tian, Chu Wang, Cong Wang, Tao Wang, Wei Xiong, Yi Xiong, Tao Zha, Bohui Zhang, Tianyu Zhang, Zhiwei Zhang, Ye Zhao, and Julie Lei Zhu.

The ASEAN+3 Bond Market Guide series provides country-specific information on the investment climate, rules, laws, opportunities, and characteristics of local bond markets in Asia and the Pacific. It aims to help bond market issuers, investors, and financial intermediaries understand the local context and encourage greater participation in the region’s rapidly developing bond markets. This edition focuses on the Inter-Bank Bond Market in the People’s Republic of China, which is one of the country’s most important bond markets and one of only two that are accessible to foreign investment.

A cross-country comparative analysis shows that there is substantial room for further integration of China into global financial markets, especially in the case of the international bond market. A further successful liberalization of the Chinese bond market would encompass not only loosening bond market regulations, but also further developing of other markets, notably the foreign exchange market. Even though the increased integration of China into international capital markets would increase its exposure to the global financial cycle, the costs in terms of monetary autonomy would not be large given China’s size and especially under a well-articulated macroeconomic framework.

Publisher description

This report contains the comprehensive reports of the ASEAN+3 Bond Market Forum Sub-Forum 1 (SF1) and Sub-Forum 2 (SF2). The SF1 report (Volume 1) analyzes the harmonization and standardization of the existing bond markets in the ASEAN+3. It also contains the individual market guides of 11 economies under the ASEAN+3 Bond Market Forum (ABMF). The SF2 report (Volume 2) provides an overview of the ASEAN+3 bond markets and their infrastructures, as well as issues confronted by each bond market in the region. It also presents bond-market infrastructure diagrams, domestic bond transaction flows, and cross-border bond transaction flows, which can help the reader to visually navigate the existing bond market infrastructures in the region. The report is the product of the collaborative efforts of the National Members and Experts and International Experts of the ABMF in cooperation with the Asian Development Bank's Office of Regional Economic Integration.