From recapitalising rural banks to propping up the inventory market, Central Huijin, an arm of China’s sovereign wealth fund, has supported the nation’s monetary system since its launch 20 years in the past. However over the previous 12 months, the size of its interventions has thrust it into the highlight.
Central Huijin’s holdings of trade traded funds soared previous Rmb1tn ($140bn) in 2024, a seven-fold enhance 12 months on 12 months, as the federal government ordered stimulus measures geared toward boosting the economic system.
Beijing has made clear its want to construct greater monetary establishments to assist its already state-dominated monetary sector navigate financial and market turmoil. Central Huijin, with each its direct shopping for and huge portfolio of companies, is a key part of this initiative.
Through the escalation of the commerce warfare with the US in April, Central Huijin brazenly pledged to assist markets and, for the primary time, described itself in an announcement as a member of the “nationwide workforce” of outstanding state-backed buyers within the nation’s markets.
“Central Huijin is clearly being requested to play a giant function,” mentioned George Magnus, a analysis affiliate at Oxford college’s China Centre.
“It will likely be referred to as upon an increasing number of to intervene within the monetary sector and the inventory market as China adapts to the fact of upper non-performing loans, tighter credit score situations, and weaker asset costs,” he added.
Central Huijin can be an important device as the federal government reshapes a sprawling monetary sector that continues to be largely closed off from the skin world.
“Huijin is changing into a strategic co-ordinator,” mentioned one Beijing-based coverage adviser. “It’s a handy device for the state to lever when it must tighten its grip on very important monetary sources.”
Since its launch in 2003, the fund has traditionally acted as the federal government’s lender of final resort in opaque rescues of regional banks. It additionally holds controlling or strategic stakes in main lenders, reminiscent of ICBC and China Everbright, in addition to the troubled insurance coverage items spun off from Anbang, a Chinese language monetary conglomerate that entered chapter proceedings in 2024 after years of fighting insolvency.
The fund turned a fully-owned subsidiary of China’s sovereign wealth fund, China Funding Company, in 2007.
Following a sweeping management reshuffle and final September’s stimulus transfer, the fund has considerably broadened its portfolio, going deeper into ETFs and increasing throughout the monetary system.
It’s now led by Zhang Qingsong, 59, a former central banker with three a long time of expertise in China’s monetary system. He additionally held senior administration posts at lenders reminiscent of Agricultural Financial institution of China and Financial institution of China, which gave him deep familiarity with Huijin’s expansive portfolio.
In February, the Ministry of Finance transferred its controlling stakes in China’s three largest bad-debt managers — Cinda, Orient and Nice Wall — to Huijin, without charge.
Its whole property beneath administration quantity to $1.1tn as of June 2024, in accordance with firm filings, but it surely additionally has stakes in a portfolio of state monetary establishments with whole property of at the least $29tn, in accordance with Monetary Occasions calculations — an enormous proportion of the nation’s complete monetary property.
Huijin didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Though April was the primary time Huijin had publicly declared itself as enjoying within the place of state intervention fund within the “nationwide workforce” — or within the language of China’s market regulator, as a “quasi-stabilisation fund” — it has acted equally up to now to assist set a ground for China’s inventory market throughout occasions of misery.
It beforehand performed the identical function propping up shares in the course of the market rout of 2015, investing an estimated Rmb1.2tn in additional than 900 firms to stop a meltdown. It has exited lots of these holdings since 2021, although it nonetheless held stakes in 165 listed firms as of the primary quarter of 2025, in accordance with the Wind monetary knowledge service.
However from early 2024, its focus shifted to growing its holdings of trade traded funds monitoring main indices, which averted points arising from single-stock purchases.
The shopping for intensified in April following Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs, when Huijin pledged to step up ETF purchases “when vital.” An estimate from a Shanghai-based analyst not allowed to publicly converse on the matter suggests ETF purchases by Huijin in April alone might have reached Rmb200bn.
Huijin’s expanded function this 12 months has been helped by broader co-ordinated strikes from different regulators, with important assist from the Individuals’s Financial institution of China. As China seeks to consolidate its monetary sector, Huijin may help facilitate mergers and expedite approval occasions.
Its exercise has additionally coincided with an official push for larger dividends in China, whereas a decline in mutual fund charges is anticipated to cut back its prices.
A senior govt at a Beijing fund home mentioned that it was laborious for managers to maintain charges at earlier, larger ranges, given the “large” inflows from Huijin.
Many analysts anticipate that an intervention fund reminiscent of Central Huijin’s would finally exit the market after holding positions for a number of years, however this might take longer than standard, given the scale of purchases this time.
And, with the mainland’s A-share markets now carrying extra strategic weight than they did a decade in the past, and valuations nonetheless at low ranges, the Shanghai-based analyst advised Huijin and the authorities could also be keen to carry positions for “20, 30, even 40 years”.
“I don’t see any near-term threat of the nationwide workforce exiting the market or coverage turning unfavorable,” he mentioned. “It’s not the story in the meanwhile.”
