The Shanghai Stock Exchange has approved the development of global exchange-traded funds (ETFs) by Chinese fund houses to track six overseas indexes including the Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI>, the Shanghai Securities News reported on Monday, citing Xu Ming, vice general manager of the exchange.

Plans for the global ETFs have been submitted to securities regulators for approval and the Shanghai Stock Exchange has made all the technical and system preparations required for their launch, the newspaper said.

Shanghai is promoting the development of new investment products and opening its markets as part of plans to become into an international financial center by 2020.

Global ETFs, to be launched under China's qualified domestic institutional investor (QDII) scheme that allows Chinese to invest abroad, would allow investors to buy a basket of securities that track the performance of an overseas index.

French bank Societe Generale's China fund venture said last month that it was developing ETF products that track Japan's TOPIX Core30 Index <.TOPXC>.

Other products under development would track indexes such as Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average <.N225> and Hong Kong's China Enterprise Index <.HSCE>, the Shanghai Securities News said.

(Reporting by Samuel Shen and Edmund Klamann)

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