BEIJING — China's fund industry is crucial to the country's promotion of high-quality development in its capital market, the head of China's securities regulator said on Aug 30.

China's fund industry, now managing assets topping 60 trillion yuan (about $9.27 trillion), has become an important force in serving the real economy and wealth management, said Yi Huiman, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

By the end of July, assets under management of public offering funds in China surged 160 percent from the end of 2016 to 23.5 trillion yuan, ranking fourth globally, Yi told a representative conference of Asset Management Association of China.

In the same period, the volume of private equity fund and venture capital fund tripled to 12.6 trillion yuan, the second-highest in the world, while private securities fund volume doubled to 5.5 trillion yuan.

The fund industry has played a positive role in China's major capital market reforms by ways such as attracting medium to long-term funds, boosting market stability, and improving the quality of listed companies, according to Yi.

As of the end of June, up to 10.8 trillion yuan of stocks were held by funds, accounting for 12.5 percent of the A-share market, up 4.3 percentage points from the end of 2017.

Yi said the fund industry has also contributed to China's old-age pension system reform as well as innovation and entrepreneurship. By the end of June, some 3.6 trillion yuan of pension had been entrusted to the hands of fund managers, accounting for more than 50 percent of the total pension entrusted to investment.

In the meantime, Chinese private funds' principal of equity investment reached 7.6 trillion yuan, about 87 percent of which had gone to small and medium firms, high-tech companies, and start-ups. Fund investment into the green sector has topped 480 billion yuan.

Yi called on the fund industry to properly handle the relationship between scale, structure, and development quality, seek a balance between regulation, innovation, and risk prevention, strengthen client service, and crackdown on irregularly managed private fund products.

To enhance regulation, authorities will introduce rules for private funds at an appropriate time and continue to improve the fund regulation system to facilitate institutional investors, encourage long-term investment in the capital market, and protect market order as well as the legitimate rights and interests of investors, he said.