Securities regulator to tighten supervision on insider trading

The Chinese securities regulator vowed to tighten supervision over insider trading on Wednesday, a persistent headache for the Chinese stock market.

"Insider trading remains a serious problem despite the efforts we have made," said Xiao Gang, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) during the opening ceremony of an exhibition on insider trading.

Last year, the CSRC cracked 86 cases of insider trading and punished 66 people, up 247 percent from the previous year, Xiao said.

The number of insider trading cases has continued to rise. In the first half of 2014 alone the CSRC investigated 54 cases, said Xiao.

"It is still a key task for the CSRC to crack insider trading," he said. The CSRC will improve companies' management of insider information and regulate behaviors of companies' controllers.

Along with the crackdown on insider trading, China is planning a system to monitor and record whether players within its capital market act with integrity.

The regulator will toughen punishments on frauds in initial public offerings, release of fake information, insider trading, market manipulation and serious dereliction of duty by brokerage firms.