China specifies requirements for public offering, insurance funds to boost A-share investment

China's public offering fund sector has maintained a stable development trend in recent years, with further measures set to boost the development of this sector in 2025, an official said at a press conference on Thursday, while detailing enhanced support for the A-share market.

Assets under the management of China's public offering funds rose to 33 trillion yuan (about US$4.6 trillion) by the end of 2024 from 13 trillion yuan in 2019, according to Wu Qing, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

In 2025, the sales fees of public offering funds would be further slashed, saving a total of 45 billion yuan annually for investors, Wu told the press conference held by the State Council Information Office.

Chinese financial authorities unveiled a plan on Wednesday outlining measures to encourage medium- and long-term funds into the capital market to further stabilize stock performance, with Wu elaborating at the press conference that public offering funds would increase their A-share holdings of circulating market capitalization by at least 10 percent annually over the next three years.

Wu said that efforts are being made to ensure large state-owned insurance companies allocate 30 percent of their newly added annual premium incomes to invest in A-shares starting in 2025, which is expected to inject hundreds of billions yuan of long-term capital into the A-share market each year.

The second batch of pilot programs for long-term stock market investment from insurance funds will be implemented in the first half of 2025, with a minimum scale of 100 billion yuan, gradually expanding thereafter, Wu added.