Portuguese insurer Fidelidade will be the first Portuguese company directly to invest in China’s stock markets, Portuguese news agency Lusa reported this week.

Lusa reported that Fidelidade was on a shortlist of the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) programme, in which foreign companies were authorised by the Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission to buy shares in the highly regulated Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges.

It should take around three months before another Chinese regulator, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, decides how much Fidelidade can invest in the stock markets, the news agency reported.

The QFII programme was created in 2003, and has granted 290 companies a total quota of US$78.8 billion to invest in the Chinese stock markets.

Last year Chinese firm Fosun International purchased Fidelidade from Portuguese state-owned lender Caixa Geral de Depósitos.