Franklin Templeton Sealand Fund Management Co and HSBC Jintrust Fund Management  are among the three domestic fund houses that received regulatory approvals on Friday to launch new stock funds, the Shanghai Securities News said.

Franklin Templeton Sealand is the China fund arm of US fund manager Franklin Templeton, a unit of Franklin Resources. HSBC Jintrust is HSBC Holdings's Chinese fund joint venture.

The funds, the seventh batch approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission this year, would be launched for sale in the near future, the newspaper said.

Beijing has so far approved around 20 new stock funds - more than half the level for all of last year - in an apparent bid to arrest a further slide in stock prices.

But the approvals - which followed an informal five-month halt in new fund launches - have failed to boost stock prices as demand for equity funds has plunged while redemptions jumped amid a broad sell-off in the A-share market, fund managers say.

The benchmark Shanghai composite index has fallen nearly 40 per cent since October, due largely to fears of a US recession and a flood of new stock supply at home. The magnitude of the decline has also worried securities regulators.

The falling interest in stock funds was coupled with rapidly growing demand for bond and cash funds, as investors embraced less risky products, fund managers said.

The Shanghai Securities News said on Saturday that China's Penghua Fund Management Co won official approval on Friday to launch a new bond fund. -- REUTERS