(ECNS) – An ongoing bull market and the removal of the "one person, one account" policy is helping attract more investors to the Chinese stock market, with the number of newly opened A-share accounts setting a historic high last week, according to data released by the China Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation Limited (CSDC) on Tuesday.
As of April 17, the number of A-share accounts totaled 198 million, meaning that about 100 million Chinese people are shareholders.
The number of new A-share accounts neared 3.26 million last week, jumping 93.77 percent from the previous week. It marked the fifth week in a row that the number of newly opened A-share accounts topped 1 million in a week.
Last week's number was about three times the previous weekly high, set in 2007 when there also was a bull market, and accounted for 70 percent of the total for March.
In March, 4.87 million A-share accounts were opened, with daily numbers reaching 111,900 on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, up 196.4 percent from the previous month, and 109,300 on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, up 197.45 percent month-on-month.
The CSDC's March data also show that South China's Guangdong province registered the highest numbers of new A-share accounts in both Shanghai and Shenzhen, with 277,366 on the Shanghai market, or 11.29 percent of the monthly total, and 263,961 on the Shenzhen market, or 11 percent of the monthly total.
