The State Administration of Foreign Exchange said on Monday that it has approved $9.18 billion worth of investment projects that 72 Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors, or QFII, had applied for between Jan 1 and Sept 19.

To encourage the reform of the domestic capital market, the administration has accelerated its processing of QFII applications.

By the end of August, as many as 181 overseas institutions had obtained QFII licenses from China's securities regulator.

From the start of the QFII system in 2003 until Wednesday, $30.82 billion worth of projects that had been applied for by 157 QFII institutions had received approvals from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.