JP Morgan Asset Management is eyeing the “enormous” potential of becoming a leading fund manager for both domestic and international investors in China, a month after becoming the first foreign firm to be granted a standalone asset management licence in the country.

Richard Titherington, the firm's chief investment officer and head of emerging markets and Asia Pacific equities, who relocated from London to Hong Kong last year and is responsible for $80 billion in assets, told Financial News: "China is extremely important for the next decade or more, both in terms of investing in China for international clients and in terms of the growth of the domestic asset management industry, which in our view will grow to rival the US, certainly over the next decade.