The Bond Market in China

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Introduction The bond market is a financial market that identifies two different environments: the primary market, in which members issue new debt; and the secondary market, in which they can sell or buy debt securities. The main aim of the bond market is to guarantee a long-term funding mechanism for both private and public outflows. Traditionally the global bond market has been dominated by the Unites States; however, nowadays the US constitute less the half of the market (Pike, Neale and Linsley, 2012), while China has grown significantly. Since the 1990s, the Chinese economy has been increasing at a rate of 10 per cent per year, and its bond market has emerged from practically non-existing into one of the main markets around the world (Goldman Sachs, 2013). According to HSBC, at roughly $4 trillion, it is currently the fourth largest after the United States, Japan and France rising at about 30 per cent a year (Financial Times, 2014). The bond market of China is developing in a more market-oriented structure, rather than towards an administrative structure. Nonetheless, investors still have to face barriers to access China’s strong expansion through the bond market, such as the number of restrictions regarding who and how can invest, a lack of knowledge concerning the kinds of bonds existing, and other aspects of the Chinese bond market (Goldman Sachs, 2013). The graph below shows and overview of the growth of Chinese bond market over the past 10 years, and its current global position. Source: Goldman Sachs 2013 Segmentation of the bond market The bond market of People’s Republic of China comprises two markets, which complement, and interconnect with each other (Bond Market Guide). They are the Exchange bond mark... ... middle of paper ... ...e a strong foundation for the bond market. The future achievement for expanding the market is to improve the organisation of regulation together with the establishment of market-wide efforts. Furthermore, the government should mature a connection between the Inter-bank and the Exchange bond market centred on a neat direction of market expansion (Bond Market Guide). These measures should lead to the elimination of capital controls and to an economy with better interaction with foreign investment. As a matter of fact, a liquid bond market is essential to help the prevention of capital inflows and outflows, which will cause the volatility of the interest rate. A government bond market that functions properly – that is with plenty of liquidity – is able to make the benchmark of the market for pricing instruments in other market and for risk free-rates (Insight, 2013).

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