The Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) has used up the 150-million USD QFII (qualified foreign institutional investors) quotas in China, and is now applying for new quotas, the International Finance News reported on Thursday.

China launched the QFII pilot program in 2003, allowing foreign investors such as the UBS, CSFB, Deutsche Bank, Normura Securities, and Citigroup Global Markets Limited to engage in the securities business in the A-share market. Since then, the regulator has been making efforts to improve related rules and regulations in a bid to open the market wider to foreign investment.

CSFB, the investment banking unit of Switzerland's Credit Suisse Group, said the new QFII quotas will be authorized at any time.

The CSFB mainly invests in primary industries and financial institutions in China, according to the International Finance News.

Since April this year, the Chinese government has promised to add 6 billion US dollars of investment quotas for QFIIs. The decision expands the country's total investment quotas for QFII to10 billion US dollars. Although many QFIIs have submitted their applications for more quotas, the approval process has been quite slow, the newspaper said.