Wealth management products in China have totalled RMB12.8 trillion ($2.1 trillion) as at the end of May 2014.

The size of the Chinese wealth management products sector, subject of fears about its robustness in the face of a potential economic shock, stood at $2.06 trillion at the end of May, according to state media that quoted senior central bank officials. 

This market had swollen at a clip of between 60 and 80 per cent a year for several years before the pace eased to 30 to 40 per cent in 2013, Pan Gongsheng said in remarks published on Xinhua news agency at the weekend. The sector has expanded rapidly because investors are hungry for yields against the background of low official rates, leading to concerns of undue risks building in the system. 

The Chinese government is putting strategies in place to safeguard the value of people's wealth management assets.

The government has imposed restrictions on these so-called "opaque investment products" in 2013 in a bid to curb the shadow banking system, which had left four state-run banks revealing that they had some $467 billion in such products outstanding as at the end of that year. Because of their largely unchecked nature, some of the products had been used to enter high-interest and risky loan transactions with private businesses.

To foster the safe growth of this industry, Pan said that regulation of the WMP market should be strengthened to "control risk and push forward the healthy development of the sector."

"While the focus of China's WMPs market development used to be on mobilizing social resources to support the growth of the real economy, the authorities would do more to ensure the value of people's financial assets preserved and increased," said Pan.