China continues efforts to strengthen supervision of listing activities

China is mulling to raise the listing criteria of some market sections and implement on-site inspections of at least one third of the IPO applicants as part the country's ramped-up efforts to strengthen the supervision of listing activities.

Yan Bojin, head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission's department of public offering supervision, said the commission will guide the Shanghai and Shenzhen bourses to moderately tighten the financial listing criteria of certain market sections so that companies of different development stages can get listed in suitable sections.

Yan, who is also the commission's chief risk officer, said the CSRC will significantly increase on-site inspections of the companies under IPO reviews to cover no less than one-third of the applicants.

Activities of fraudulent issuances and financial frauds detected in on-site inspections would be strictly punished, even if the companies withdraw their listing applications, Yan said.

In a guideline the CSRC released on Friday to strengthen the supervision of stock issuance, it was also stressed that it will implement counter-cyclical adjustments to the issuance of new stocks in accordance to the secondary market's capacity to absorb new shares.