Quality of companies listed in China steadily improves

BEIJING - The quality of companies listed on the A-share market has been improving steadily, mirroring China's high-quality economic development, the country's top securities regulator and industry insiders have said.

The structure of the listed companies has gone through profound improvement in recent years. Companies are larger, more profitable, and have a more balanced financing mix, said Li Ming, an official with the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), at the Annual Conference of Financial Street Forum 2022.

Li said that more listed companies are from emerging industries, and industry development is more balanced.

The number of listed companies now exceeds 5,000, up nearly a third from the end of 2019. More than half of them are in the strategic emerging industries, the CSRC data showed.

Profits of non-financial listed companies account for 57.3 percent of the total, surpassing those of financial listed companies, according to the data.

Sha Yan, general manager of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, said there are more than 1,200 companies listed on the tech-heavy ChiNext board now, with a total market value of over 11 trillion yuan ($1.54 trillion).

Some 486 companies are now listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE)'s sci-tech innovation board, raising more than 730 billion yuan in initial public offerings. Their total market value exceeded 6 trillion yuan, according to Cai Jianchun, the general manager of the SSE.

The sci-tech innovation board boosts the virtuous cycle of science and technology and capital and industry, said Cai.

In the first three quarters of the year, listed companies reported combined operating revenue of 52.37 trillion yuan, up 8.51 percent year-on-year, data from the China Association for Public Companies showed.

Their net profits reached 4.75 trillion yuan, up 2.46 percent from a year earlier.

To further improve the quality of listed companies, Li said the CSRC mulled another three-year action plan to optimize the structure of listed companies, improve market ecology, and make the regulatory system more mature.

The action plan will focus on further improving rules and regulations for listed companies, enhancing listed companies' governance level, deepening reforms, and improving the adaptability and timeliness of supervision.

Both Shanghai and Shenzhen bourses plan to provide better service to listed companies and improve the market ecology.