China bond trading volumes edge closer to $1 billion mark on Tradeweb

[March 06, 2019]    LONDON (Reuters) - Chinese bond trading volumes edged closer to the one billion dollar mark last month, Tradeweb said on Wednesday, highlighting growing investor interest in Chinese financial markets.

Average daily volumes of Chinese bonds executed via Tradeweb on the Bond Connect platform hit $957 million dollars in February, marking a rise of almost 184 percent year-on-year, Tradeweb said in its monthly activity report.

China and Hong Kong launched the "Bond Connect" scheme in 2017 to link China's $9 trillion bond market with overseas investors, the latest step in Beijing's efforts to liberalize and strengthen the country's capital markets.

Tradeweb was the first trading platform to link to Bond Connect.

According to Tradeweb, average daily trading volumes in U.S. Treasuries rose 3.7 percent year-on-year in February to almost $84 billion.

That set a new monthly record for total Treasury trading volume despite low market volatility, Tradeweb said.

Record trading volumes were also seen last month in U.S. investment-grade credit and European exchange traded funds, Tradeweb said.

(Reporting by Dhara Ranasinghe, Editing by Abhinav Ramnarayan)

[© 2019 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2019 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.