Quotas for qualified foreign institutions investing in mainland stock markets have been relaxed, the government-run news agency Xinhua reports.

The Xinhua report cites a paper from the People’s Bank of China and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. Foreign investors in the Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (RQFII) programme “will be granted quota limits based on their aggregate assets”.

Institutional investors must still apply for the additional quota, while sovereign wealth funds and central banks are exempt from the restriction.

The changes further open up the mainland’s financial services sector.

At the end of last month, more than 510 billion yuan (US$76.3 billion) in investments for 170 foreign investors had been approved under the RQFII programme, Xinhua says.

The RQFII programme began in December 2011 with the aim of opening investment channels “for overseas yuan funds on the Chinese mainland, opening the domestic market more widely” and increasing the use of the yuan overseas, Xinhua reports.