A new Chinese stock exchange meant to nurture small and high-tech enterprises, modeled on the US’ NASDAQ market, started trading yesterday, with the share prices of all 28 listed companies soaring.
Huayi Brothers Media Corp (華誼兄弟傳媒), one of China’s top movie studios, surged 210 percent by midday on the ChiNext exchange in Shenzhen. Other companies rose by at least 119 percent.
The new board is intended to help smaller Chinese companies in a financial system that has long favored big, state-owned companies.
Huayi Brothers and most of the other companies on the new exchange are privately owned, while China’s main exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzhen are dominated by government enterprises.
The communist government has talked for more than a decade about creating a NASDAQ-style market to promote technology and other new industries, but its launch was repeatedly delayed.
Beijing hopes that the new exchange will “channel resources into competitive emerging industries to nurture new economic growth,” China Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman Shang Fulin (尚福林) said last week.
Six firms on ChiNext are in biotech or pharmaceuticals and others are in information technology, energy efficiency, telecoms, medical equipment and electronics.
The exchange “will help to upgrade industries, serving as a window for the world to know more about the Chinese economy,” said Peng Yunliang, an analyst for Shanghai Securities.
The size of share offerings on ChiNext was small compared with the multibillion-dollar initial public offerings on the main boards in Shanghai and Shenzhen, but analysts said investors would welcome the new opportunities.
Some investors worried ahead of ChiNext’s launch that the flood of new shares might depress other stock prices, but the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index was up 2.1 percent at midday.
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
TRADE: A mandatory declaration of origin for manufactured goods bound for the US is to take effect on May 7 to block China from exploiting Taiwan’s trade channels All products manufactured in Taiwan and exported to the US must include a signed declaration of origin starting on May 7, the Bureau of Foreign Trade announced yesterday. US President Donald Trump on April 2 imposed a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan, but one week later announced a 90-day pause on its implementation. However, a universal 10 percent tariff was immediately applied to most imports from around the world. On April 12, the Trump administration further exempted computers, smartphones and semiconductors from the new tariffs. In response, President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has introduced a series of countermeasures to support affected
CROSS-STRAIT: The vast majority of Taiwanese support maintaining the ‘status quo,’ while concern is rising about Beijing’s influence operations More than eight out of 10 Taiwanese reject Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for cross-strait relations, according to a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday. The MAC’s latest quarterly survey found that 84.4 percent of respondents opposed Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for handling cross-strait relations — a figure consistent with past polling. Over the past three years, opposition to the framework has remained high, ranging from a low of 83.6 percent in April 2023 to a peak of 89.6 percent in April last year. In the most recent poll, 82.5 percent also rejected China’s
PLUGGING HOLES: The amendments would bring the legislation in line with systems found in other countries such as Japan and the US, Legislator Chen Kuan-ting said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) has proposed amending national security legislation amid a spate of espionage cases. Potential gaps in security vetting procedures for personnel with access to sensitive information prompted him to propose the amendments, which would introduce changes to Article 14 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Chen said yesterday. The proposal, which aims to enhance interagency vetting procedures and reduce the risk of classified information leaks, would establish a comprehensive security clearance system in Taiwan, he said. The amendment would require character and loyalty checks for civil servants and intelligence personnel prior to
RSS