A third stock market will be set up in Beijing to help small- and medium-sized companies raise capital, Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping announced Thursday.
“We will continue to support the innovation and development of small- and medium-sized enterprises, deepen the reform of the New Third Board, set up a Beijing Stock Exchange to build a primary platform serving innovation-oriented small- and medium-sized enterprises,” Xi said in a video speech during an international fair for trade in services held in Beijing.
China already has two stock markets, both set up in 1990. One is in Shanghai and the other is located in Shenzhen, a city next to Hong Kong.
The New Third Board Xi mentioned is an over-the-counter capital market launched in 2013 in Beijing. Its official name is the National Equities Exchange and Quotations (NEEQ). It has been deemed an easier financing channel for small businesses with its simplified procedure and lower cost.
Xi didn’t provide further details or the timeline of the setup.
Shortly after Xi’s speech, the China Securities Regulatory Commission posted a statement, saying it will build the new stock exchange based on the listed companies in the select sector of the New Third Board.
The regulators said the new stock exchange will position itself as a platform to serve innovative small- and medium-sized enterprises, supplementing the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges. At the same time it will be more “inclusive” and “targeted.”
The regulators also said they will work with other agencies to lay down the rules and regulations for the new stock exchange and provide technical support.
According to the latest statistics of the World Federation of Exchanges, the Shanghai Stock Exchange ranks the third in the world with a $7.27 trillion market capitalization for the month of July 2021, following New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. While Shenzhen Stock Exchange ranks No. 7 with $5.59 trillion after Euronext, Japan, and Hong Kong.
The launch of the new stock exchange comes at a time when the communist regime has begun to clamp down on Chinese tech giants’ overseas IPO explorations.
Last year, the Chinese regime stopped the IPO of Ant Group, an affiliate company of Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group. At the time, Ant Group was set to raise $34.5 billion, which would have become the largest IPO in the world.
In July, Beijing also went after DiDi—China’s ride-hailing giant—two days after its IPO was listed in the United States, prompting its shares to drop more than 40 percent.
On July 24, Xi banned for-profit tutoring on core school subjects, giving a major blow to the tutoring industry.
On Aug. 17, Xi delivered a “common prosperity” speech, pledging to readjust “excessively high income” and eliminate illicit gains, which scared wealthy Chinese people.
One day later, Chinese internet giant Tencent announced it would donate $7.7 billion to echo the government’s wealth redistribution efforts. Alibaba Group announced on Sept. 2 that it would invest $15.5 billion by 2025 in support of the initiative.
“All of the measures which have been announced for the last few weeks have something in common: centralization of power and stronger oversight,” Alicia Garcia-Herrero, a regional economist in Hong Kong at French financial firm Natixis, told the Wall Street Journal.
Emel Akan and Rita Li contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
