South Korea’s National Pension Service (NPS), the world’s fourth-largest pension fund, has won approval to buy Chinese securities as part of China’s qualified foreign institutional investor (QFII) program, the Financial Times reported. The NPS said it will begin buying Chinese assets this year as part of its international expansion. The fund is currently worth about US$300 billion, and may increase to US$1 trillion by 2020. International investments made up 10% of the portfolio in 2010, but this will rise to 25% by 2014 according to fund chairman Jun Kwang-woo. More than 10 other Korean institutions have received approval to begin investing in mainland assets. For much of 2011, Beijing issued no QFII quotas over concern of “hot money” inflows. However, in the last quarter the foreign exchange regulator granted seven licenses, bringing the total number of qualified investors to 112. The NPS has not yet been given a ceiling on its investment in China, though recently awarded quotas have only been about US$100 million per institution.