Blackrock Fund Advisors, a US subsidiary of the firm, received a renminbi qualified foreign institutional investor (RQFII) quota of RMB 11bn ($1.6bn) in February, as reported.
The firm already has RQFII quotas for its other entities, which include Blackrock Asset Management North Asia (RMB 2bn), Blackrock (Singapore) (RMB 20bn) and Blackrock Advisors (UK) (RMB2.1bn).
In total, the firm has RMB 35.1bn in RQFII quotas.
Blackrock-managed funds, including certain iShares ETFs, may utilise the additional quota to invest in Chinese onshore securities, subject to their investment objectives and restrictions, the firm said in the statement.
Besides its RQFII quotas, the firm also has qualified foreign institutional investor (QFII) quotas totalling $1.25m, according to the statement.
RQFII and QFII bring capital into China. By comparison, the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investors (QDII) scheme provides quota for onshore investors to invest offshore.
Quota ceilings
The RQFII programme was extended to the US last year, which has a quota ceiling of RMB 250bn, according to a Citibank report. The US has the second highest quota ceiling, following Hong Kong, which has fully utilised its RMB 270bn quota.
RQFII quotas (as of end-September 2016)
Source: Citibank
Since the programme began, SAFE in total has awarded around RMB 541.1bn in RQFII quotas to 181 licence holders and $89.2bn in QFII quotas to 278 licence holders, according to SAFE.
