BEIJING - China's foreign exchange regulator has granted 10.7 billion yuan ($1.7 billion) of investment quota to the first ten RMB Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (RQFII), making a step forward in further opening the country's capital market.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) also roughly even-split the quota between fund-based and securities-based RQFII, while putting certain restrictions on the scale of private equity funds.

The RQFII mechanism, which was launched two weeks ago, allows qualified investors to invest RMB funds raised in Hong Kong in the mainland securities market within a permitted quota. The total investment quota is set at around 20 billion yuan.

Among the first batch of RQFII, ChinaAMC got a top share of the quota, at 1.2 billion yuan. CSOP Asset Management, Harvest Fund, Da Cheng International, China Universal, HFT Investment, Bosera Funds, and HuanAn Funds, each received a share of 1.1 billion yuan. Shenying &Wanguo and Essence International Financial was each granted 900 million yuan.