Offshore investors raised China bond holdings

Offshore investors raised their holdings of Chinese bonds traded on the country's interbank market to a new record in March, official data showed, ahead of the phased inclusion of some Chinese bonds in a major global index. Total offshore holdings of interbank market bonds reached 1.76 trillion yuan ($262.22 billion) by end-March, the most on record, according to Reuters' calculations on data from the Shanghai Clearing House and China Central Depository and Clearing Co., China's major bond clearing houses.
That was up 11.9 billion yuan from a month earlier. Chinese treasury securities made up 1.09 trillion yuan, or about 62 percent of total holdings, an increase of 9.94 billion yuan from a month earlier. In contrast, offshore holdings of bonds issued by China's policy banks fell by 8.27 billion yuan from the previous month's record high, to 371.38 billion yuan, Reuters' calculations showed.
China's policy banks disburse loans to support the government's development initiatives. Global index provider Bloomberg Barclays began adding Chinese government bonds and policy bank bonds to its Global Aggregate Index from April 1, in a phased 20-month process that is expected to draw billions of foreign dollars into China's $13 trillion bond market, the world's third-largest.