China still important IPO market: NASDAQ

Updated: 2011-10-20 13:23

(Xinhua)

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HONG KONG -- China's market is "huge" for future growth, and the piled-up applicants for the initial public offerings (IPO) are still in hope after the global markets for IPO are open again, a senior executive at NASDAQ OMX told Xinhua Wednesday.

Bruce Aust, NASDAQ executive vice president, said the company is still excited at  the opportunities in China, with the " dramatic" growth in the country, and NASDAQ will continue investing heavily to help the Chinese companies access the US market and become public.

As the world's largest stock exchange by volume, NASDAQ has about 3,500 companies listed on its board, among which, 124 are the Chinese companies.

Bruce said although the IPO market has been slowing down under the huge uncertainty in the global economy, he still sees a "big pipe line" of companies waiting to access the US markets and list on NASDAQ with over 105 applicants, and about 20 are the Chinese ones.

"Assume the market is open, we'll hopefully see the companies come to the market," he said, adding "We do believe that the window will open, and the Chinese companies will have access to the US capital markets again."

Bruce said NASDAQ has been operating in China for many years, and has very great listing companies like Baidu, Sina and Ctrip, " you still see the entrepreneur spirit in Asia, and there are very positive stories of these entrepreneurs that are growing great companies in China."

Commenting on the alleged Chinese companies making fraudulent reporting and being delisted from NASDAQ, Bruce said the company is always working for the regulators to see if there're things they could put in place that would prevent such behaviors.

Improving the education is one key method that NASDAQ has been doing, such as organizing the IPO group camps and corporate governance seminars, through which, the CEOs can have a better understanding of what it means to being a public company, and the obligations it means to be part of the US capital markets.

"We still see a huge amount of companies that want to come to the IPO and you have to realize that they're very strong companies and they shouldn't be prevented only because of a few bad apples."