China's market for corporate asset-backed securities (ABS) will hit 200 billion yuan ($24.8 billion) within two years, officials from the securities regulator said in remarks published on December 28.
The comments from the China Securities Regulatory Commission suggested authorities planned to greatly step up allocation of quotas for asset-backed securities, since the licenses doled out so far have authorised the issuance of only 15 billion yuan in such paper.
"The asset-backed securities market for Chinese companies will surpass 200 billion yuan within the next two years," the official Economic Daily quoted officials from the regulator as saying.
China launched its first asset-backed securities this year, allowing the likes of China Unicom Ltd, China's second-largest cell phone operator, policy lender China Development Bank and China Construction Bank Corp to issue such paper.
China Unicom issued 3.2 billion yuan worth of asset-backed securities on the Shanghai bourse in September, becoming the first mainland firm to do so.
The two banks sold a combined 7.3 billion yuan on the interbank market. The newspaper also citied unidentified sources as saying that the regulator was actively studying the possibility of allowing mutual funds to invest in such securities.