Chinese stocks gallop in 2007, analysts look at 2008

In the year just passed, PetroChina, coal miner China Shenhua Energy Co (神華能源) and China Construction Bank Corp (中國建設銀行). heeded the government's call to return to local capital markets to raise funds and improve the quality of listed companies.

Among the IPOs coming up next: China Mobile (中國移動通信), the country's largest mobile service provider, which plans to raise US$10 billion or more in a listing in coming months.

Reforms aimed at combating rampant price manipulation, improving shareholding arrangements and strengthening corporate disclosure requirements helped restore investor confidence after years of devastating scandals kept share prices mired in multi-year lows.

But as far as Zhou is concerned, they haven't gone far enough.

"Listed companies in China seem to have more freedom than elsewhere to choose what they want or don't want to disclose," he said. "That's so unfair to investors, especially our individual investors."

Still, many analysts and investors remain bullish about China, given its booming growth. The economy is forecast to grow close to 11 percent next year once again, despite efforts to curb investment and cool inflation.

"Don't be too panicked about the experience with PetroChina," says Chen Huiqin (陳惠琴), an analyst at Nanjing-based Huatai Securities (華泰證券). "The IPOs of big state-owned companies are still full of potential."

The market has slumped after regulators, fearing that prices were rising too quickly, suspended sales of mutual funds to new subscribers. That ban ended late this month.