July 8 — Pang Yaping, board member and managing director and head of index R&D
at E Fund Management, said China now has nearly 1,600 ETFs since the first in
2004, with aggregate AUM about 6 trillion yuan at the start of the year. ETF
penetration of the Chinese equity market is roughly 2.4%, versus about 24% in
the US and ~25% in Europe, implying substantial upside. Product types have
diversified—broad-market, sector/theme, style/factor, cross‑border and commodity
ETFs—and participation from medium- and long-term investors is increasing. Pang
flagged pronounced product homogeneity among the ~1,600 ETFs and urged a shift
from scale-driven expansion to stronger operational capability, global
allocation and active-passive integration. He said index investing’s purpose is
to lower investment difficulty and called for continued focus on refined
operations, product innovation and investor services to drive quality over
quantity.
