China FTSE Bond Index Inclusion to Take Much Longer Than Planned

  • Inclusion will be over 36 months instead of 12 months: FTSE
  • Foreign funds have been piling into Chinese sovereign debt
WATCH: Chinese sovereign bonds will join FTSE Russell’s flagship bond index, while FTSE took Malaysia off a watchlist for possible exclusion. Simon Flint reports.(Source: Bloomberg)
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Chinese sovereign bonds will have the sixth-largest weighting in FTSE Russell’s flagship World Government Bond Index, though global investors have three times longer than they expected to grow their holdings to that level.

The index compiler will add Chinese bonds in October in phases over a period of three years, longer than the 12 months initially envisioned after market feedback, FTSE said in a statement. They would comprise 5.25% of the index on a market value-weighted basis, based on prices as of March 25, giving China a slightly bigger weighting than the U.K.