Portuguese insurer Fidelidade is to be allowed to invest directly up to US$700 million in China’s stock markets under the Asian country’s quota system for foreign institutions, Portuguese news agency Lusa reported this week.

It will become the first Portuguese company to have access to the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges through the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) programme, the report added.

Founded in 2003, the QFII programme allows foreign companies –upon approval by the Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) – to buy shares in the highly regulated Chinese equity markets.

Fidelidade – acquired by Chinese firm Fosun International from Portuguese state-owned lender Caixa Geral de Depósitos in 2014 –first got the green light in November from CSRC for such investment. The Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange confirmed the investment quota this week.

Since 2003 the QFII programme has granted 294 companies an aggregate quota of US$81.1 billion to invest in the Chinese exchanges, Lusa reported.