CHINA: Nasdaq on charm offensive in China to get more Chinese companies listed

The Nasdaq stock exchange held a remote bell ringing session in Beijing on Tuesday (April 3). The Nasdaq regularly invites listed companies to ring the opening or closing bell from their headquarters or another remote location. It has held such events in several U.S. cities as well as London, Davos, Switzerland and Mysore, India. The exchange is the largest U.S. electronic equities exchange, with approximately 3,200 companies listed and is seeking to get more Chinese companies to join. Bob Greifeld, President and CEO of Nasdaq said they chose Beijing because of China's increasing global economic power. "We see certainly this has been the Chinese decade," Greifeld said. "We see that China has stepped forward on the world economic stage. And we also recognize that that economic growth is driven by a lot of the companies in this audience here today. And we can certainly say it's been the Chinese decade. We can certainly think it's probable it'll be the Chinese century and it's also possible it can the Chinese millennium." Nasdaq currently has about 40 companies from China with a market capitalisation of approximately 30 billion US dollars listed in its exchange. More foreign investment is also pouring into China. The Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor scheme, which permits access to the country's A-share market, normally reserved for domestic investors, has now grown to 10 billion US dollars in quotas. State media said recently that quota would be doubled to 20 billion US Dollars and that it would loosen rules of programme. That growing clout means that though China's markets are insulated from the rest of the world somewhat by capital controls, people pay more attention to it than ever. "We definitely see that the exchanges globally will become more interconnected in the years to come. Today, most of the interconnections happened at a investor level with mangers had the abilities to buy and sell globally. So they are effective with that but it's relatively inefficient. The exchanges have the abilities to tie together and bring different efficiencies to global trading. Certainly, we see that coming in the years," Bob Greifeld said. Most of China's some 1,400 listed companies are controlled by the state. Private companies remain largely shut out of mainland bourses in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Cheng Weiqing, Vice President of Research Department of CITIC Securities Co. Ltd, said the most the bell ring meant something long term for the Chinese stock market. "NASDAQ having its remote bell ring here in Beijing is a symbol. It's not going to have a direct impact on the Chinese stock market. But it's meaningful. The Chinese capital market and the international capital market will be more and more interconnected." Cheng said. On February 27, 2007 a nearly 9 percent plunge in the Shanghai market helped trigger a global slide. The Shanghai Composite Index has since recovered. It rose 1.19 percent on Tuesday to close at a record-high 3,291.299 points. At the same time, Beijing is encouraging domestic firms that have already listed abroad to return home and list in Shanghai or Shenzhen as well.

ITN Source | April 4, 2007

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