(Yicai Global) April 8 --  Overseas institutions are racing to enter the Chinese bond market, lured  in by the nation's continuous opening-up and strong economic growth.

About 300 new foreign  institutional investors opened their bond trading accounts in the first  quarter, quadrupling from last year, according to the currency regulator  of the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.

Products from global leading assets management firms like BlackRock have entered the Chinese bond market, the regulator said.

The value of overseas  institutional investors' transactions on China's bond market rose 31  percent to CNY919.1 billion (USD136.8 billion) in the first three months  of this year. 

Last week, China's  yuan-denominated bonds were added to the Bloomberg Barclays Global  Aggregate Bond Index, a gauge of investment grade debt from 24 local  currency markets. A total of 356 government and policy bank bonds will  be added into the benchmark over the next 20 months.

Editor: Emmi Laine