Chinese A-Shares still out from MSCI Emerging Markets

Once again the Chinese A-Shares, the shares listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock exchanges in renminbi, were not included in the MSCI Emerging Markets. The index provider MSCI has again postponed the inclusion of local Chinese shares in its benchmark on global emerging stressing that the Asian giant has to do more to make its markets accessible to foreign investors.

MSCI returns so for the third consecutive year the inclusion of A Shares and this year analysts gave a probability of greater inclusion to 50 percent, with Goldman Sachs who recently said that the odds were well 70 per cent believing that latest moves of the China Securities Regulatory Commission had dissolved concerns about the "beneficial ownership" of the shares held.

The possible inclusion of A Shares in the MSCI Emerging Markets will therefore be re-examined next year (the review of the indices take place on June each year), but it remains possible an early announcement in the event of significant changes before June 2017.