February 23, 2005, marked the official listing of China's first ETF, the SSE 50 ETF (510050), which launched with an initial size of 5.4 billion yuan. At a time when most investors were still unfamiliar with funds, introducing an innovative product featuring real-time creation/redemption, exchange trading, and index tracking—and naming it with the three letters "ETF"—was nearly a gamble. No one could predict what changes its emergence would bring to the capital markets.
Yet it succeeded.
Over the following two decades, China's ETF market continuously evolved through innovation. ETFs have grown beyond mere investment products to become a普惠, efficient, and transparent investment paradigm, serving as a hallmark of capital market development.
As the manager of the SSE 50 ETF, China Asset Management (ChinaAMC) used this as a starting point for over 20 years of dedicated cultivation. It progressed from a domestic "ETF powerhouse" to a global "top-tier player," becoming the first Chinese ETF provider to rank among the world's top 20.
01 ETF Pioneer: From 0 to 1, Breaking Through Barriers "Looking back at the ETF's journey, it was never a smooth path but rather a story of gradual accumulation after overcoming numerous narrow gates."
In 2005, the A-share market had just undergone a prolonged adjustment, with the Shanghai Composite Index briefly falling below the 1,300-point mark, leading to low market confidence. Under these conditions, the fundraising challenge for the first ETF was considerable. Even more difficult was the product's implementation from scratch. As a completely new vehicle, ETFs had no precedents for their operational mechanisms, legal frameworks, technical systems, creation/redemption rules, or arbitrage logic. The R&D phase alone encountered hundreds of challenges spanning product design, registration and settlement, trading mechanisms, and risk control. From conception and research to development and launch, ChinaAMC spent five full years ultimately ensuring the successful listing of China's first ETF.
A difficult start, yet it planted seeds of hope.
From launching the nation's first ETF two decades ago, ChinaAMC believed that index investing, with its transparency and low-cost attributes, was a more suitable approach for ordinary investors. ChinaAMC General Manager Li Yimei once remarked: "Holding this belief, for twenty years we have rolled on like a 'rolling stone,' undeterred by mountains and valleys, persistently investing in the ETF space."
With the solitary courage and foresight of an industry pioneer, ChinaAMC has never ceased advancing ETF development.
ETF feeder funds, cross-market ETFs, cross-border ETFs, bond ETFs, commodity ETFs, and enhanced index ETFs followed in succession. ETF product innovation has been continuous, leading to an increasingly complete product spectrum. The inclusion of ETFs in margin trading, the launch of ETF options, the China-Japan ETF connectivity program, and the formal inclusion of ETFs in the Stock Connect schemes have progressively improved supporting mechanisms. Step by step, ETFs have overcome significant hurdles, passed milestone after milestone, moved from obscurity into the spotlight, and entered their golden age.
Reflecting on the recently concluded year, the domestic ETF market experienced epic expansion, growing by over 2 trillion yuan in a single year, pushing total assets beyond the historic 6 trillion yuan threshold. ETFs now account for 6.1% of A-shares' circulating market capitalization, acting as the "primary front" for capital inflows and hailed by the market as the "sharpest spear." Today, ETFs are ubiquitous—they allow ordinary people to tap into the pulse of the times more affordably, transparently, simply, and effectively.
02 ETF Leader: Building a Complete Product Spectrum with a "Lego Mindset" After 21 years of deep cultivation, ChinaAMC has never stopped leading the way. Adhering to a "Lego mindset" and a more granular ETF product creation principle, it has built a product matrix covering all asset classes, multiple sectors, and diverse strategies, precisely meeting the market's varied and changing asset allocation needs.
From core broad-based indices to sector themes, from domestic stocks and bonds to cross-border markets, from gold and cash to alternative strategies, ChinaAMC has achieved a "full ecosystem" layout in index investing. By the end of the year, it managed 117 ETF products, forming a complete ecosystem covering core broad-based indices, sector themes, commodities, cross-border markets, and Smart Beta strategies. Total ETF assets under management exceeded 900 billion yuan, with equity ETF average annual scale ranking first in the industry for 21 consecutive years.
Scale data sourced from the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and Wind, as of December 31. "21 consecutive years" refers to 2005-2025, using "annual average daily scale," calculated as the arithmetic average of daily scale data since product listing. ChinaAMC launched the SSE 50 ETF (510050) on December 30, 2004. Fund scale does not represent performance level; scale data is historical and not indicative of long-term reference value.
In operations and user experience, ChinaAMC sets industry standards through meticulous management: the CSI 300 ETF's annualized tracking error is only 1.25%, significantly lower than the peer average of 2.26%. With 23 designated market makers, its average daily turnover exceeds 800 million yuan. During the global market turmoil in April, its single-day turnover reached 9.252 billion yuan, while its net asset value fluctuations remained highly synchronized with the index, demonstrating trading efficiency and stability even in extreme conditions (data source: iFind, February 12).
Furthermore, to reduce investors' wealth management costs and better serve their long-term interests, ChinaAMC has consistently reduced fees to benefit investors. As of February 12, among ChinaAMC's 120 ETFs, 33 non-monetary ETFs have management fees of 0.15%, including 11 with scales exceeding 10 billion yuan. These span from massive broad-based ETFs to crucial sectors, strategies, and commodities like artificial intelligence, cloud computing, gold, and free cash flow, truly benefiting investors.
03 ETF Innovator: Empowering with Active Research, Reshaping the Index Investment Ecosystem If the "pioneer" role achieved the breakthrough from 0 to 1, and the "leader" role accomplished the expansion from 1 to N, then ChinaAMC's "innovator" role involves continuously pushing the boundaries of ETFs on the foundation of 1+N.
In product strategy, ChinaAMC leads index innovation trends with forward-looking product layouts:
- 2012: Launched one of China's first cross-border ETFs, the ChinaAMC Hang Seng ETF, filling a gap in the cross-border ETF market. - 2015: Saw the listing of SSE 50 ETF options, also the first domestic listed options product. - 2019: Introduced the first commodity futures ETF and was among the first with China-Japan ETF connectivity. - 2020: Among the first with STAR Market ETFs—the STAR 50 ETF. - 2025: Launched bond ETFs and was among the first with free cash flow ETFs.
Additionally, ChinaAMC has proactively deployed ETFs targeting frontier industry trends such as artificial intelligence, humanoid robots, fintech, semiconductors, and grid equipment, closely aligning with economic transformation and industrial upgrading to keep its product matrix vibrant and relevant.
More innovatively, ChinaAMC deeply integrates active research capabilities into product design. For instance, the free cash flow index was initially proposed by ChinaAMC, which collaborated with index providers to define stock selection criteria, filling a market gap and offering investors a more precise tool.
In quantitative strategies like enhanced indexing, the company actively embraces the AI era, prospectively applying cutting-edge AI technologies to refine quantitative investing. Its product layout is increasingly comprehensive, with a growing variety of strategies, including multi-factor enhanced indexing, AI-enhanced indexing, and quantitative hedging, forming a complete ecosystem encompassing both Beta and Alpha investing.
In the index service ecosystem, ChinaAMC also insists on innovation and breaking boundaries. To lower the cognitive threshold and operational difficulty for ordinary investors, the company created China's first service platform dedicated to index investing—"Red Rocket." After three years of development and continuous iteration, the platform uses visual data,通俗interpretations, and Lego-like portfolio building to transform complex research into simple operations, serving over 15 million individual users and truly adhering to the principle of "keeping complex research to ourselves, leaving simple investing to users."
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Each generation of investors faces its own challenges, but ChinaAMC's answer remains consistent: "perfecting simplicity." This is the long-term principle ChinaAMC steadfastly upholds.
Standing at the new starting point of the SSE 50 ETF's 21st listing anniversary, the wave of index investing in China continues to surge forward. As one of its key architects, ChinaAMC's story of pioneering, leading, and innovating will persist in creating long-term value for the industry and investors.
Please refer to legal documents for specific product fee rates. Data sources in the text: iFind, Wind, ChinaAMC. Mentions of individual stocks, indices, and funds do not constitute investment recommendations. All content is based on information available as of the release date; please refer to the latest information for any updates. The above reflects current market conditions, which may change, and does not represent any investment opinions or suggestions. Past index performance does not indicate future results and does not guarantee fund investment returns or constitute investment advice. Indices have relatively short operational histories and may not reflect all market phases. ETF secondary market price changes do not represent actual net asset value movements. Markets involve risks; invest with caution. Index performance does not represent product performance.
Hong Kong and overseas-related funds invest in overseas market securities and primarily hold liquid financial instruments in corresponding markets. Besides general risks similar to domestic securities funds, such as market volatility, these funds also face specific risks including exchange rate risk and overseas market risk. Commodity and cross-border ETFs implement T+0 trading, which shortens fund operation cycles and may increase short-term volatility risk.
ChinaAMC Gold ETF is a commodity fund, with over 90% of assets invested in domestic gold spot contracts. Gold spot contracts differ from stocks and bonds; their risk and return profiles differ from equity, hybrid, bond, and money market funds. Specific risks include: Shanghai Gold Exchange gold spot market investment risk, secondary market premium/discount risk, risks associated with participating in gold deferred settlement contracts, gold lending risks, creation/redemption basket errors, IOPV reference and calculation error risks, delisting risk, subscription/redemption failure risk, settlement delay risk, redemption proceeds liquidation risk, and NAV falling below face value after distribution. Details are in the Fund Contract, Prospectus, and other legal documents.
STAR Market-related ETFs invest in STAR Market stocks and face specific risks due to the market's unique mechanisms, including higher price volatility, liquidity risk, and delisting risk.
The mentioned ETFs are subject to risks such as index returns deviating from overall market returns, index volatility, and tracking error. Their feeder funds carry additional risks like feeder fund structure risk, tracking difference risk, and performance divergence from the target ETF. Past market or product performance does not guarantee future results. Before investing, read the Fund Contract, Prospectus, and Key Facts Document to understand the fund's risk-return profile and characteristics. Assess your own risk tolerance based on investment objectives, time horizon, experience, and financial situation. Make rational, careful investment decisions and assume investment risks independently. This document is not a legal offering; views are for reference only. Information herein does not constitute final investment, legal, accounting, or tax advice, and ChinaAMC makes no guarantees regarding such advice. ChinaAMC is not liable for any losses resulting from use of this content. Markets involve risks; invest with caution. Dollar-cost averaging is a simple method for long-term investing and averaging costs but does not ensure profits. Markets involve risks; invest with caution.
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