<p>China Lets Yale Trade Domestic Stocks </p>
<p>By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 19, 2006
Filed at 2:52 p.m. ET</p>
<p>NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) -- The Chinese government has authorized Yale University to trade domestic stocks and bonds, making it the first foreign university granted access to the country's tightly restricted securities market.</p>
<p>The approval, announced this week in the state-run Shanghai Daily and confirmed Wednesday by the university, allows Yale's endowment investors to tap one of the world's fastest growing economies.</p>
<p>It also underscores the increasingly tight-knit relationship between China and the ultra-prestigious American university, a relationship marked by Chinese President Hu Jintao's scheduled visit to the school Friday.</p>
<p>China allows foreign investors to buy a limited number of stocks and bonds, called B-shares, that are quoted in U.S. and Hong Kong dollars. The much larger domestic stock exchange, which trades stocks known as A-shares, is restricted to Chinese investors and a select group of approved foreign institutions.</p>
<p>Yale's $15 billion endowment is one of the world's largest and has more than tripled in value in the past decade.</p>
<p>Institutions that win approval to buy A-shares are limited in how much they can invest and the size of Yale's stake was not immediately released.</p>
<p>This week, Hu said the Chinese economy grew 10.2 percent in the first three months of the year compared with the same quarter last year, well above previous estimates. The nation's economy has grown at an annual pace of about 10 percent for the past three years.</p>
<p>Hu had dinner Tuesday at the home of Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates and planned to tour a Boeing commercial jet plant Wednesday. Thursday, he was scheduled to meet with President Bush in Washington before delivering a speech at Yale on Friday.</p>
<p>Yale's relationship with China dates to 1854, when Yung Wing became the first Chinese citizen to graduate from an American university, the school said.</p>
<p>Yale President Richard Levin has dramatically expanded that relationship in recent years. Today, the university has more than 80 academic collaborations with Chinese institutions and offers 26 study sites in China.</p>
<p>More than 300 of Yale's 11,000 students are Chinese, making them the largest group of foreign students at the school.</p>