China will gradually open up its bond market to foreign investors, central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan pledged on Friday, while stressing that the country will not deliberately seek to incorporate its bond market into global indexes.

He made the statement at a press conference on the sidelines of the ongoing annual legislative session.

After Bloomberg launched new fixed income indices covering RMB-denominated China bonds, Citigroup Inc said recently that it will include China's onshore bonds in its emerging markets and regional indexes. The updates were believed by some analysts as signal of China’s opening bond market.

However, Zhou said that China's bond market has always been open to foreign investors, and it is by no means a new move.

But he pointed out that China’s progress in the internationalization of the RMB last year has particularly boosted foreign investors' interest in China’s bond market, citing the RMB's inclusion into the Special Drawing Right (SDR) currency basket by the International Monetary Fund.

China also rolled out some supporting policies as well, the governor added.

Pan Gongsheng, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, said at the same press conference that overseas governments, institutions and enterprises had issued more than 60 billion yuan ($8.69 billion) in bonds, or "panda bonds", in China by the end of last year.

So far, more than 400 overseas institutions have invested about 800 billion yuan in the Chinese market, representing a growth of more than 100 in investors and 150 billion yuan in investment compared to the previous year, elaborated Pan, also head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

In recent years, China introduced a series of policies to bolster investment from overseas institutions in the Chinese market, he said, such as easing market access, eliminating restrictions and facilitating cross-border capital transfers.