China's sci-tech board gets ready for trading

China's new science and technology board gears up for trading as tech companies get listing approvals from the country's top securities regulator, the Economic Information Daily reported.

Two tech companies, the Suzhou HYC Technology Co Ltd, and the Yantai Raytron Technology Co Ltd, will become the first batch of applicants to go public on the new submarket, an announcement of the China Securities Regulatory Commission said on June 14.

As per data provider WIND, among the 123 accepted applicants, nine companies have been approved by the Shanghai Stock Exchange to go public on the new board, and seven of them are awaiting the green light from the CSRC.

Huang Hongyuan, president of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, said that the first batch of listed firms may start trading on the new board within two months. And analysts expect trading of the new submarket to commence in July.

The new board, officially known as the STAR market, was launched at the Shanghai Stock Exchange on June 13.

This Nasdaq-style tech board aims to help the country's small and medium-sized innovation enterprises get much needed funding, as these startups find it hard to raise funds in China's A-share listing due to requirements on profitability.

As a game changer, the new board is also the first submarket of China's capital market to adopt the registration-based initial public offerings mechanism, a core system of market-oriented reforms.

Technical and regulatory preparations are underway, as the SSE has conducted a technical test for the new board and officially launched the board's software version on June 15. The SSE also released a trial monitoring rules for the new board on June 14.

It is reported that investors are eager to invest in the new board, with more than 2.5 million potential investors, and 120 billion yuan ($17.3 billion) of fund purchase. Yi Huiman, chairman of the CSRC, said that the supply-demand imbalance at the beginning of the new board launch may trigger short-term speculation and large rise and fall at the stock market.