As the world economy recovers, financial protectionism may rear its ugly head again and it is important for governments globally to fight against it, the top supervisor of China's sovereign wealth fund said yesterday in Shanghai.

"Prior to the outbreak of the financial crisis, a lot of people in developed economies didn't feel very comfortable to see external investors moving into their turf," Jin Liqun, chairman of the board of supervisors at China Investment Corp, said at the HSBC Global Asset Management forum yesterday.

"During the crisis, sovereign wealth funds invested and stayed while speculators quit, and we are now starting to enjoy returns from our investments," said Jin, formerly the vice president of the Asian Development Bank and China's vice minister of finance.

But Jin added that while governments may welcome SWFs to invest in distressed assets in their countries due to the crisis, "it's also very likely that the mood will swing back (to protectionism) when the crisis is over. It's important for all of us to fight against financial protectionism."

The US$300 billion CIC, set up in 2007, invests part of the country's US$2.5 trillion in foreign exchange reserves.

"China Investment Corp is and will remain a long-term financial investor," Jin said. "China embraces foreign investment, so when China goes abroad (to invest) we hope that we'll be treated the same way as we do."

He said that CIC had experienced political barriers overseas when it tried to invest but he declined to name the countries.

CIC invested US$9.6 billion in 84 United States-listed firms, including Morgan Stanley, Apple Inc and Coca-Cola by the end of last year.