China Investment Co Ltd, the State forex investment company to make better use of the country's huge foreign exchange reserve, is expected to start operation this week, said Monday's China Securities Journal.

Senior management of the company will include Lou Jiwei, Gao Xiqing, Zhang Hongli, Xie Ping and Hu Zuliu, said "informed" sources.

Lou is currently a deputy secretary-general of the State Council, or the cabinet; Gao is a vice chairman of the National Council for Social Security Fund; Zhang is a vice finance minister; Xie is the general manager of the Central Huijin Investment Corporation and Hu is the general manager of Goldman Sachs Group (Asia) Ltd.

In an interview with the newspaper in Dalian, Hu did not give confirmation to the news that he would join the company, but offered his advice that the company should not aim too high in terms of returns in the beginning stage when it is still short of personnel and risk management capability.

He said the company should have 100 to 200 investment specialists and about 1,000 employees in other fields, including IT, risk management and legal affairs.

At the end of last month, the Ministry of Finance announced it would use forex purchased with returns from a 600 billion-yuan (US$67.79 billion) special treasury bond sale to finance the China Investment Co Ltd.

China's forex reserve had reached US$1.33 trillion by the end of June.