NEW YORK, July 22 (Xinhua) -- China's sci-tech innovation board (STAR) will help enhance global capital markets as it provides a new pipeline to companies and investors, a U.S. expert has said.
The STAR board brings more opportunities for companies to raise money and for investors to invest in companies to help them grow, which is "beneficial to all investors and to all markets," Robert McCooey, chairman of Nasdaq Asia-Pacific, told Xinhua in a recent interview.
"When the global capital markets are enhanced through a brand new board like the STAR market in Shanghai, we think that's good for everybody," he said.
China's sci-tech innovation board started trading on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Monday with the first batch of 25 companies debuting on the board.
McCooey noted that China's new board will gain further steam, fueled by the country's robust businesses activities.
"I'm sure that with so many companies and so many great entrepreneurs in China, they will have multiple opportunities to list a lot of really good companies in the future," he said.
According to statistics from China International Capital Corporation, about 150 firms are expected to be listed on the new board this year, raising 50 billion yuan (about 7.27 billion U.S. dollars) to 100 billion yuan.
The sci-tech innovation board is China's latest reform attempt to turn the A-share market into a more market-oriented and law-based one.
Unlike other domestic boards, it cuts listing application red tape, allows more market-based pricing, prioritizes information disclosure and tightens delisting rules by piloting the registration-based initial public offering (IPO) system, a popular practice in many developed markets.
The STAR market is also widely recognized as China's latest Nasdaq-style high-tech board. McCooey said he viewed it more as a potential opportunity for collaborations rather than a challenge for his exchange as Nasdaq is also a technology partner for many exchanges globally.
The Nasdaq senior executive said that the momentum for Chinese IPOs to the U.S. exchanges remains strong after a solid previous year.
Nasdaq has already witnessed 17 Chinese companies debut on it so far this year, compared with 22 all of last year, according to the exchange.
"We've had great IPOs such as Luckin Coffee, So-Young, Yunji and DouYu (this year)...So we're very excited about our position and the fact that so many companies are attracted to be part of the Nasdaq family, and that built upon a very successful year," said McCooey, adding he expects more Chinese companies to come.
Chinese video-game live-streaming platform DouYu International Holdings, which made its debut on the Nasdaq last week, expects to raise about 775 million U.S. dollars, making it the largest IPO by a Chinese firm in the United States so far this year, according to data from Dealogic and Refinitiv.
The number of Chinese firms listed on the U.S. exchanges increased to 43 in 2018 from 24 in 2017, revealed financial data provider Wind, as more companies mull going public driven by the country's fast economic development.
Chinese companies are quite attractive to "U.S. investors as well as global investors who understand that there are fantastic businesses being built in China," said McCooey.
