China may raise ceiling on foreign capital market investors-paper

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China is studying plans to lift the investment ceiling for long-term investors in the country's capital markets, the official China Securities Journal reported on Wednesday, citing unidentified sources.

Currently, an overseas institution is allowed to invest up to $1 billion (627 million pounds) under the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) programme - foreigners' main gateway to China's capital markets.

Relevant government bodies are currently studying plans to lift that ceiling for select investors in a bid to attract long-term capital from overseas and help stabilize the domestic capital market, the newspaper said.

China has rolled out a series of measures this year to expand the QFII scheme, including lifting the ceiling of combined QFII quotas by $50 billion to $80 billon, and lowering the threshold for QFII applicants.

Last month, China granted a record $2.8 billion in quotas to overseas investors including the Government of Singapore Investment Corp GIC.UL, Barclays Bank Plc (BARC.L) and JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N).

(Reporting by Samuel Shen and Kazunori Takada; Editing by Eric Meijer)