Regulators in China should accelerate its listing approval pace and ease threshold for companies to list in China's Nasdaq-style board, an exchange official said.
The purpose is to foster the new growth engine of Chinese economy and enlarge the market for growth companies, also known as ChiNext Board, now only accounting for 10 percent of the Shenzhen bourse, according to He Jie, head of the research institute under Shenzhen Exchange.
"Last May, China Securities Regulatory Commission adjusted its threshold for companies to list in the ChiNext. Companies with a minimum revenue of 50 million ($7.8 million), and profit of 10 million yuan, for the past two-year average could list. But in reality the standards are applied," He said at the China Capital Market Annual Conference 2015, organized by Securities Daily.
Of the 484 companies currently listed in the board, average annual revenue is nearly 400 million yuan and profit is 60 million yuan, way higher than the minimum standards, He said. The approval process is still excessively long, in many cases takes one to three years.
"To ensure a stable revenue and profit, many emerging companies waiting for IPO dare not undertake large-scale mergers or investment. The waiting process has become an unbearable marathon. When it comes to listed companies doing mergers, they don't have to go through the approval process if they use cashes, but are subjected to approval if equities are used," he said.
He said let emerging companies get access to the capital market is critically important because direct financing matches the features of new companies in emerging industries. Banking loan does not fit because banks are highly risk-averse, while entrepreneurship in emerging industries, such as new energy cars, are rife with risks.
Many start-ups in the initial period do not generate profits at all, thus are excluded from the market under CSRC's criteria. It would be best if the profitability criteria were dropped, he said.
"The only criteria to assess the success of ChiNext is several years later, whether it could give birth to a few globally competitive companies in a few industries," he said.
