A new ETF giving access to Chinese A shares is to be launched in Singapore next month.

The United FTSE Xinhua China A50 ETF, to be offered by the asset management subsidiary of United Overseas Bank (UOB), will be the first China A-shares fund to be denominated and traded in Singapore dollars.

Chinese A shares are denominated and traded in Chinese yuan and listed on the Shanghai or Shenzhen stock exchanges. Historically, access to the A-shares market in China has been limited to Chinese nationals and qualified foreign institutional investors (QFIIs) approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC).

The FTSE Xinhua China A50 Index is designed to measure the performance of the 50 largest China A-shares companies, based on market capitalization.

ETFs tracking A shares are already dominant in the Asian market. The Hong Kong-listed iShares Asia Trust, which also tracks the FTSE Xinhua A50 Index, is the largest Asian ETF, with $6.7

In the wake of global financial events, a couple of articles have caught my attention in terms of implications for the dollar. First was this Reuters account of a People's Daily editorial, suggesting "diversification". But it's hard to discern the underlying message given the low signal to noise ratio in official publications. Today's article in the IHT is a little more informative, not just about what's going on in China but in Asia (where a lot of that "saving glut" was alleged to come from):

In Asia, bloom is off the U.S. rose

By Keith Bradsher, Published: September 18, 2008

HONG KONG: Tremors from Wall Street are rattling Asian confidence, leading many investors to question the wisdom of being invested in the United States to the tune of trillions of dollars.

Asian investors were starting to show hesitation even before the financial earthquake of the last week. Now, a wariness toward the