UBS, one of the world's leading financial firms, Tuesday emphasized the importance to the mainland's economy of removing the restriction on the transfer of non-tradable shares; and that now is the best time to carry out such reforms.

"Non-transferability is by far and away the largest problem for China's A-share market," Vincent Chan, chief strategist, China at UBS, said Tuesday at a press conference. "If the problem is addressed, there is likely to be a significant spur to industry consolidation through mergers and acquisitions as well as the privatization of State assets."

Chan said the current non-tradability of legal person shares makes it hard to acquire a listed company. "Reform would also make it easier for private-sector companies to enter sectors currently dominated by State-owned interests," he said.

As of November 14, 2003, there were 1,239 companies listed on the mainland A-share market with a total market capitalization of US$468.3 billion but only 35 per cent of the total share capital in the market is tradable, with the balance, most classified as State-owned shares or legal person shares, being non-tradable.

Chan added that the valuation gap between blue chip A-shares and H-shares and red chips was narrowing, as a result of a deflation in the overall A-share market due to a surge in supply of new stocks.

"Valuation equalization is already taking place with the gradual liberalization of both China's A and B-share markets," Chan said.

"However, a number of initiatives, including the implementation of QDII (Qualified Domestic Institutional Investors), would be easier to implement after the issue of non-transferability has been resolved," he said.

Chan said it is reasonable for the central government to worry about capital flows from A shares to H shares when the government opens up the QDII market, because of the higher share prices in the A-share market.

Yet he said he is optimistic about the launch of QDII in the long run because of the increasingly closer valuation gap between A and H shares.

He added that the development of financial derivatives markets may also gain momentum from the reform as, historically, a major obstacle has been the distorted valuation of the A-share market overall.

He said the authorities have expressed their concern that the derivatives market will, in effect, allow investors to sell short the market. However, he said regulators are likely to be more inclined to liberalize the market if share prices settle to more reasonable levels.

"Nevertheless, a number of blue chip A-shares are already attractively valued and the fact that the share price performance of the A-share market has diverged throughout 2003, with good companies outperforming and badly-managed companies performing poorly, indicates that the market is already growing in sophistication," he added.

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