BEIJING -- China's securities regulator said it aims to increase the quantity of shares available for trading as part of rules it launched Wednesday on new-share offerings.
The rules follow a draft published on May 22, in which the China Securities Regulatory Commission sought market opinions and in doing so sparked analyst expectations that initial public offerings of stock would be allowed to resume in China. The regulator has imposed an unofficial moratorium on IPOs since September because of concerns that new supply could hurt existing shares.
The stock-market regulator has said the revised rules are largely intended to boost the market's role in pricing new shares, for instance by narrowing the gap between the IPO price and the trading price on a stock's debut. New issues have typically soared on their debut, suggesting the IPO price was artificially low.
As part of the rules, the regulator said it will "seek appropriate time to adjust the share-offering policy to increase the quantity of tradable shares." It didn't elaborate, but Chinese companies often list with only a small number of shares available for trading by the public.
The regulator said the plan to increase the number of tradable shares was made after some investors urged it to reduce the post-IPO lockup period for some shares, a move that would release more shares to the market immediately after a company goes public and help limit the impact of speculative trading.
The regulator also decided that a single investor can have only one stock-trading account, an effort to limit some larger investors from seeking to get their hands on more new shares by opening several accounts.
