The CSRC pledged on Sept. 10 to steadily raise the scale and proportion of long-term funds entering the A-share market under its 15th Five-Year Plan framework, disclosing that social security, annuity and insurance money has already net-bought over RMB 600 billion of shares this year.
China's securities regulator will widen the channels through which pension, insurance and mutual fund money reaches the mainland stock market, pairing a structural demand pledge with disclosure that long-term investors have already bought more than RMB 600 billion of A-shares this year.
Li Chao, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, told a State Council Information Office briefing in Beijing on Sept. 10 that the agency will "steadily raise the scale and proportion" of medium- and long-term capital entering the market, develop equity public funds and strengthen the "stabilizer" function of institutional money. The commitment sits second in an eight-part agenda for the 15th Five-Year Plan period running through 2030.
"Market stability is the precondition for deepening reform, and also an important goal of reform," Li said. "We will continue to improve the market mechanism and ecosystem for long-term money and long-term investment."
The disclosed flows give the pledge a baseline. Social security funds, annuities and insurers net-bought more than RMB 600 billion ($89.5 billion) of A-shares this year, lifting the free-float market value of their holdings 12.5 percent above the end-2025 level, according to Li. The National Social Security Fund returned 13.2 percent on its investments in 2025, while public mutual funds generated RMB 1.74 trillion of profit for investors in the first half of 2026.
The scale of that inflow matters against the size of the pool it is meant to anchor. A-share free-float market capitalization runs in the tens of trillions of yuan, so a 12.5 percent increase in institutional holdings is a meaningful shift in who owns the marginal float rather than a rounding error — and it is the first time the CSRC has quantified the long-money build-up alongside a five-year target for raising it further.
The regulator's second lever is supply. Li said the CSRC will implement more inclusive listing, refinancing and merger rules and "strive to make the A-share market the preferred listing venue for high-quality domestic companies," a formulation the agency has not used before. Listing standards will be adjusted dynamically, with coverage extended in an orderly way toward emerging industries, future industries, traditional manufacturing upgrades, modern services and new consumption. The CSRC will also accelerate revisions to refinancing registration rules and promote integrated development of the Beijing Stock Exchange and the National Equities Exchange and Quotations.
Review timelines have already compressed. Average IPO vetting on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges has shortened to about six months, and refinancing reviews for selected quality companies now clear in under one month, Li said. Since the "Six M&A Measures" took effect in 2024, listed companies have disclosed 370 major asset restructurings.
Legal architecture is the third leg. The revised Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Securities Companies are expected to be issued soon, with drafting and amendment of the Securities Investment Fund Law and the Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Listed Companies being expedited. Enforcement has run in parallel: the CSRC investigated 644 securities and futures violations in the first eight months of 2026 and imposed RMB 9.84 billion in fines and confiscations, recovering RMB 5.15 billion for investors. Financial fraud cases have totaled 247 over three consecutive annual campaigns, with 156 administrative penalties and nearly RMB 10 billion in fines and confiscations.
The regulator also said it will promote standardized use of artificial intelligence in supervision, advance the digital and intelligent transformation of oversight, and tighten monitoring of new business types — a signal that algorithmic trading and novel product structures will face closer scrutiny as the market opens further.
For investors, the arithmetic is straightforward. Long-money commitments are slow-moving and contractual, which caps downside velocity in index heavyweights but also means the inflow will not accelerate on a single policy statement. The near-term test is whether the revised securities company regulations land with the enforcement teeth Li described, and whether the 12.5 percent free-float gain extends through the second half — the next scheduled policy checkpoint is the CSRC's implementation guidance for the 15th Five-Year Plan framework, due before the 2030 target date.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
