China's green light to S&P signals more opening up of financial markets

China is speeding up efforts to open up its financial markets, providing foreign rating agencies great development opportunities, experts said after US-based financial information and analytics provider S&P Global was permitted to set up a subsidiary in China.

"The permit for S&P Global to enter China's credit rating market is a milestone in the country's financial opening-up, with other foreign rating agencies eyeing the market as it has great potential," said Zhang Monan, a researcher at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges.

S&P Global is a leading provider of credit ratings, benchmarks and analytics. It has been allowed to set up a wholly owned subsidiary in Beijing, according to an announcement published by the People's Bank of China, the central bank, late Monday. The subsidiary has received permission to provide ratings services in China's interbank bond market.

"The historic approval marks the first time a company wholly owned by an international credit rating agency has been allowed to rate domestic bonds," S&P Global said.

The PBOC pledged China will continue to open up its credit rating industry and support more qualified foreign credit rating agencies to enter the domestic market.