News agency Xinhua announced that China's foreign exchange regulator has awarded investment quotas totaling two US$6.57 billion. These quotas have been distributed amongst 34 qualified foreign institutional investors. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange has so far granted approval to 40 QFIIs. China began granting overseas institutional investors a status of QFIIs in May 2003. Offshore investors can hold treble shares in China, only through QFIIs. The Chinese government had last year announced its plan to increase the total investment quota by QFIIs to US$10 billion. SAFE had approved US$2.22 billion in investment quotas during 2005.