MSCI adds Chinese 'A-shares'

Among the 234 Chinese companies are Air China, China Eastern Airlines, Bank of China, Kweichow Moutai and Tsingtao Brewer.

In a statement, Fidelity International portfolio manager Raymond Ma welcomed the news and said the inclusion of these “A-shares” would likely ramp up the “participation of foreign institutional investors”.

“In the medium to long term, this will help the A-share market to become more sophisticated, improve liquidity and see it increasingly driven by fundamentals rather than short-term market noise,” Mr Ma said.

He added that the Chinese A-share market was “primarily dominated by retail investors currently,” but MSCI’s inclusion looked set to raise the proportion of institutional investors over time.