Shanghai Stock Exchange Photo:CFP

The Nasdaq-style sci-tech innovation board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, known as the STAR market, on Tuesday marked its sixth anniversary of announcement. As of Tuesday, the market had attracted the listing of 577 enterprises in high-tech and strategic emerging industries, playing an important role in supporting the development of new quality productive forces and contributing to the construction of China's multi-layered capital market.

"The establishment of the STAR market several years ago came at just the right time, with many of its designs, for example the IPO threshold, accommodating the financing demand of a large number of high-tech firms amid a new wave of technological revolution," said Wan Zhe, an economist and professor at the Belt and Road School of Beijing Normal University.

Since its launch, the market has become the preferred listing destination for "hard-tech" companies. Among the companies listed on the STAR market, 351 are recognized as national "little giants," the Securities Times reported on Tuesday.

The term "little giants" refers to innovation-driven small and medium-sized enterprises that own core technologies in a niche market and show great market potential.

The STAR market has become a new catalyst of the country's science and technology innovation, said Cao Heping, an economist at Peking University.

By providing a new channel for high-tech firms to raise funds, the STAR market contributes to the rapid development of high-tech firms in industries including semiconductors, new materials and new energy, accelerating the country's overall industrial transformation and upgrading, he said.

Over the past five years, as a testing ground for the country's capital market reform, the STAR market made continuous improvement in aspects including registration-based IPOs, market trading, delisting mechanisms and the protection of rights and interests. 

It plays a demonstration role in the in-depth reform of other boards - for example, the registration-based IPO mechanism in the ChiNext board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and main boards, as well as the setting up of the Beijing Stock Exchange - and injects new vitality into China's capital market.

In June, the China Securities Regulatory Commission rolled out new measures to deepen the reform of the STAR market to better serve sci-tech innovation and promote the development of new quality productive forces.

The measures include further supporting the listing of enterprises making breakthroughs in new industries, new business patterns and new technologies, improving the pricing mechanisms for IPOs.