Stock market Illustration: VCG

China will fully promote the deepening and strengthening of the registration-based IPO system while allocating more resources to support scientific and innovative enterprises, an official said on Saturday. 

Wang Jianjun, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, made the remark at the Annual Congress of China Association for Public Companies and 2023 Chinese Listed Companies Summit.  

Wang proposed measures and targets to elevate and improve the current mechanism and cooperation. 

For instance, Wang called for guiding market resources into scientific and innovative enterprises, and better serving the national innovation-driven development strategy. He also said he supported the expansion and development of high-quality listed companies by optimizing institutional arrangements. 

The reform of the registration-based IPO system aims to improve market inclusiveness and openness, especially as some Western economies suppress China's high-tech sectors and involved enterprises developing overseas, Dong Dengxin, director of the Finance and Securities Institute of the Wuhan University of Science and Technology, told the Global Times.

Dong said that China's capital market has to serve the real economy with high quality, with a focus on industrial transformation and upgrading, highlighting support for scientific and innovative enterprises especially in bottleneck sectors as a major mission for China's capital market and emphasizing the significance of offering more IPO opportunities for key firms representing the future direction of China's industrial development. 

Wang noted that China's capital market has to function as a good "barometer," vowing to create more excellent listed firms with core competitiveness in the scientific and innovative field. Targeted actions for better supervising the quality of listed firms have been implemented since the end of 2022.

China's listed companies have contributed significantly to supporting the nation's innovation. In 2022, the research and development (R&D) investment of listed companies reached 1.66 trillion yuan ($234.97 billion), accounting for 50 percent of national R&D expenditure, according to Wang. 

China's domestically listed companies achieved total operating income of 71.53 trillion yuan in 2022, up 7.2 percent year-on-year, with a stable growth trend, according to data from the China Association of Public Companies.

Global Times