CSRC wants more reform

China's top securities regulator pledged on Tuesday to persistently push share issuance reform toward a more market-oriented model and further open up the country's capital market.

The securities watchdog has been "firmly determined" to promote a registration system for initial public offering issuances to replace the current administration approval mechanism.

The statement was made by Xiao Gang, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission at a forum hosted by Caijing magazine.

An investor is checking the stock market bulletin board in a traders' office in Haikou on Tuesday.[Photo/China Daily]

The registration system is based on an information disclosure system covering all public companies. The commission has responsibilities to ensure the completeness, accuracy and timeliness of the information in order to protect investors' interests."Based on the information disclosure principle, securities regulators will not make any judgment on public companies' market value or sustained profitability," said Xiao.

It is the first time the commission chairman clarified the specific reform tasks for the securities sector after the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee ended a week earlier, after which the country's leadership stressed the need to let the market determine economic resource allocations.

"To further improve IPO reform, more work needs to be done, including modifying the current securities law, establishing compensation mechanism for investors and improving the delisting system for unprofitable public companies," Xiao said.

The chairman also stressed the "two-way opening" of China's capital market is another long-term and important reform task, which will involve channeling out more domestic capital into the overseas investment markets as well as attracting more capital in.

The quota for qualified foreign institutional investors (QFII) and renminbi-QFII needs to be raised further and financially less restricted, according to Xiao."But we are not ready to establish the 'international board' - a market in the mainland to allow foreign companies to issue stocks because the timing is still premature."

Peng Wensheng, chief economist at China International Capital Corp, said on Tuesday at the forum that he expected to see gradual capital market reform. "It will obviously push the development of the financial system and ease the current economic development model from over-dependence on bank lending," said Peng.

The market-oriented reform in China's stock market will boost a fast increase in direct financing and further support sustainable growth of the industrial economy, said Cao Fengqi, director of the Finance and Securities Research Center at Peking University.

It may need another two to three years to implement the registration system for IPO issuance, Cao said.