HONG KONG (Reuters) – China’s Securities and Regulatory Commission (CSRC) on Wednesday night held a meeting with executives of top global investment banks with an aim to calm financial markets nerves, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The online meeting followed a brutal sell-off in shares of Chinese companies this week after investors were spooked by Beijing’s rules published over the weekend that ban for-profit tutoring in core school subjects.
The new rules for the private education companies closely followed China’s antimonopoly campaign against technology giants and new regulations for home-grown companies looking to list overseas.
“This is more to calm the market to isolate the education industry and not to over interpret it,” said one of the people, who has knowledge of the regulatory meeting chaired by CSRC vice chairman Fang Xinghai.
CSRC did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
The sources could not be named as they were not allowed to speak to the media.
Bloomberg first reported the development on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Scott Murdoch, Cheng Leng and Samuel Shen; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and Sam Holmes)