SHANGHAI, April 28 Reuters Global securities index publisher MSCI Inc on Wednesday said it has launched 20 thematic indexes to help domestic and international investors bet on megatrends in China that are aligned with the Chinese governments strategic policy goals.

MSCI said it designed its first suite of countryspecific thematic indexes to better enable investors to capitalise on longterm, structural change in technology, the environment, society and lifestyle in the worlds secondbiggest economy.

The launch comes after Beijing in March formalised its 14th fiveyear plan focusing on highquality, sustainable development, as the economy continues its shift toward reliance on domestic consumption and innovation and away from exports.

Thematic investment is exactly designed to capture these types of megatrend, said Zhen Wei, head of index solutions research for the AsiaPacific region.

The megatrends MSCI has identified cover disruptive technology, industrial innovation and other issues vulnerable to the SinoU.S. tech war, during which the United States has blacklisted a slew of Chinese tech firms on security grounds.

Doug Walls, AsiaPacific head of index products, in an interview said MSCIs job is to create tools for investors, saying, we dont take a view on those power rivalries.

MSCI uses rulesbased methodology to determine themes, and applies natural language processing and machine learning to public disclosure to evaluate links between megatrends and stocks.

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