(Yicai) Jan. 8 -- China's five major futures exchanges have announced that they will not reduce the fees for high-frequency trading.

Brokerage companies should not lower handling fees to those identified by the exchanges as high-frequency traders, according to draft rules on futures settlement and violations published yesterday by the Shanghai Futures Exchange, Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange, Dalian Commodity Exchange, China Financial Futures Exchange, and Guangzhou Futures Exchange.

Brokers are also forbidden from offering high-frequency traders other sorts of benefits to compensate for the higher handling fees or they will be punished based on the severity of the circumstances, including business license suspension and membership cancellation, according to the draft.

Last April, the State Council issued a document on strengthening the supervision and prevention of capital market risks, explicitly requiring for the first time the introduction of regulations on programmatic trading to tighten control over high-frequency trading.

The following month, the China Securities Regulatory Commission proposed stricter and differentiated requirements for high-frequency trading, including higher handling fees, to increase transaction costs for some high-frequency traders.

Editor: Futura Costaglione