New market to support 'larger, more mature' high-tech companies
Preparations to establish a new strategic emerging industries board on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) are going "very well" and there won't be any delays, a top official of the SSE said Thursday.
Responding to reporters' questions on whether there will be any delays in the creation of the new board, Gui Minjie, chairman of the SSE and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said, "I haven't heard [about any delays]," domestic financial news portal yicai.com reported Thursday.
Gui was in Beijing for the fourth session of the 12th CPPCC National Committee, China's top political advisory body.
The session began on Thursday and will run through March 14.
Plans for the strategic emerging industries board came into focus at the end of last year, when the State Council, China's cabinet, proposed to create the board on the Shanghai bourse to support innovative firms to raise funding.
"Improving the multilevel financial market system will provide companies at different development stages with more options for direct fundraising channels," said a statement issued on December 25, 2015, following an executive meeting of the State Council chaired by Premier Li Keqiang.
Creating the board has been set as a top agenda item for the SSE this year, according to a statement from the stock exchange on January 18.
However, neither that statement nor Gui's comment on Thursday revealed a specific date.
"If there is no delay, then I believe it will come in the first half of the year," said Dong Dengxin, director of the Financial Securities Institute at Wuhan University of Science and Technology.
The establishment of the strategic emerging industries board, along with the introduction of a registration-based IPO system, is part of the government's reform plan to make the nation's financial system more market-driven, Dong told the Global Times Thursday.
Although there might be some overlap between the new board and the current Nasdaq-style ChiNext board at the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, there will be "clear division," according to Dong.
He said the new board will focus on "larger and more mature" high-tech companies, mainly aiming to attract US-listed Chinese technology firms, while the ChiNext will focus on smaller-scale growth enterprises.
"The two will be inclusive and could complement each other very well," Dong noted.
