Foreign investment in brokerages suspended

Approval for foreign investment firms' applications to "take stakes in or control" Chinese brokerages has been suspended, according to a state media report Thursday, as reported by Reuters. The report, which originally appeared in the official China Securities Journal, did not say how long the suspension would last. Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and UBS already have stakes in Chinese brokerages, with a host of other foreign banks also keen to get involved.