Trading in China's treasury bond futures restarted Friday after an 18-year suspension, with prices increasing slightly and moderate trading volume.

All the three five-year contracts that traded on the Shanghai-based China Financial Futures Exchange opened up slightly from the base price set by the exchange and closed higher than the base price.

The most actively traded December 2013 contract opened at 94.22 yuan ($15.40), up from a base price of 94.168 yuan, and closed at 94.170 yuan.

A total of 36,635 lots of contracts were traded in the first day of trading, including 34,428 lots of the December 2013 contract. Each lot is 1 million yuan.

Currently, only brokerages, mutual funds and a limited number of individuals are allowed to trade the new futures, as banks and insurers, which account for more than 70 percent of the government bond market, are still waiting for regulatory approval, which is believed by analysts to be a major reason behind the moderate trading volume for the moment. 

The participation of banks and insurance companies will stimulate the market, Ding Lei, an analyst with Soochow Futures in Jiangsu Province, told the Global Times on Friday.

"It is part of China's effort to advance interest rate reform. When the country carries out interest rate liberalization, commercial banks will be able to adjust their interest rates in accordance with the futures price change, which is a major indicator of capital liquidity," Ding said.  

The new futures also improve risk control, as the interest rate will fluctuate strongly, and the futures can be used to hedge against market volatility, Qiu Yanying, investment director with China Fortune Securities, told the Global Times Friday.

The launch of treasury futures will advance the country's interest rates reforms, provide diversified risk management tools and improve the innovation mechanisms of financial institutions in ways that better serve the real economy, Xiao Gang, head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, told the audience at a launch ceremony held in Shanghai Friday.

Xiao also stressed taking severe measures against market speculation and insider trading. China originally introduced treasury bond futures trading in 1992, but the trading was halted in 1995 due to illegal trading by Wanguo Securities, then China's largest brokerage, which caused billions of yuan in losses.