BEIJING, July 8 -- The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), the country's top securities regulator, on Saturday said that it will promote the high-quality development of the public offering fund sector and steadily lower the sector's fee rates.

The CSRC statement came after a number of Chinese fund management companies on Saturday announced they would lower the management and custodian fees of their actively managed equity fund products to no more than 1.2 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively, from Monday.

The CSRC said it will guide the public offering fund sector to carry out the reform of fee rates in a sound and orderly manner, and support public fund managers as well as other institutions in the industry in making appropriate reductions on fund fee rates.

Assets under the management of China's public offering funds totaled 27.77 trillion yuan (about 3.95 trillion U.S. dollars) at the end of May this year, data from the Asset Management Association of China shows.

By the end of May, a total of 10,890 public offering funds were being operated by 143 fund management companies, the association said.