China halves stamp tax for securities trading

China has announced a slew of measures to boost the confidence of capital market investors on Sunday, including cutting the stamp tax for securities trading and temporarily slowing the pace of IPOs.

The Ministry of Finance said on Sunday the government will halve the stamp tax levied on securities trading starting Monday, and the China Securities Regulatory Commission's stated shortly thereafter that the pace of IPOs will be slowed temporarily while ex-ante communication about listed companies' large-scale refinancing plans will be strengthened.

To moderately boost demand for margin trading, the CSRC said an investor will be required to deposit at least 80 percent of the amount borrowed with their, down from 100 percent previously, starting with the close of trading on Sept 8.

The total size of major shareholders' holding reduction will be managed, the commission said. The controlling shareholder or actual controller of a listed company will be unable reduce their holdings via the secondary market in several scenarios, including when the company sees its stock price drop below its initial offering price, when it has not distributed any cash dividends in the past three years and when cumulative cash dividends are less than 30 percent of the company's average annual net profit of the past three years.