Britian's Bank Plc. said Tuesday it had won approval from China's foreign exchange regulator to open a yuan-denominated special account at Standard Chartered Shanghai Branch.

The nod from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) was under the country's Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFII) program, Barclays said.

Standard Chartered Shanghai Branch will supervise the bank's use of the account.

The move comes after the China Securities Regulatory Commission approved Barclays' application for QFII status in September.

The SAFE has already approved a US$75 million investment quota for Barclays Bank as part of QFII.

In a separate development, the SAFE said Tuesday it had raised the investment quota for Deutsche Bank AG to US$150 million from US$50 million.

Deutsche Bank received approval for a US$50 million investment quota last September.

China launched the QFII program in May 2003 to allow overseas investors to trade for the first time in yuan-dominated A-shares and convertible bonds.

It has so far approved 27 QFIIs including HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup, and granted more than US$3 billion in investment quotas.

Source: Shenzhen Daily-Agencies