MFs allowed to buy HK shares

China's securities regulator said on Friday that mainland mutual funds would be allowed to invest in Hong Kong shares through the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect program.

Mainland fund companies are no longer subject to regulatory approval under the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investors program to invest in Hong Kong shares, Deng Ge, a spokesman for the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said at a news conference in Beijing.

Several fund companies have been awaiting CSRC's approval for their products designed to allocate Hong Kong stocks since the launch of the trading link between Shanghai and Hong Kong bourses in November. Until Friday, no official guidelines on how the mainland mutual funds can participate in the trading scheme had been made.