An easing of the rules controlling foreign strategic investment into Chinese listed companies has taken place in a bid to boost the country’s struggling capital markets, the Wall Street Journal reported. Under the new regulations, foreign investors can buy tradable shares from companies that have completed the conversion process of non-tradable shares into regular Class A common shares. This is in addition to the separate Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor program. Having seen the domestic market sink to an eight-year low in 2004, more than 300 of the 1,400 companies listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen have structured share reform plans.