STAR Market to double in value by year end: official

The total market value of shares on the STAR Market is expected to hit 5 trillion yuan (US$735 billion) by the end of this year, a Shanghai Stock Exchange official said on Wednesday.

This will nearly double the STAR Market’s value of 2.6 trillion yuan as of July, when the Nasdaq-style board celebrated its first anniversary.

With heavyweight firms such as Ant Group, JD Digits and Geely applying for listings, the STAR Market's value will rise substantially in the months ahead, Liu Ti, Shanghai Stock Exchange’s vice general manager, said in a conference in Shanghai. 

Ant Group, the financial technology arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, filed for a dual listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai’s STAR Market, the company said in statements in August. 

While the size of the IPO is still subject to market conditions, the dual listing is widely expected to surpass Saudi Aramco’s record-setting listing of US$29.4 billion last December.

The Chinese mainland’s biggest chipmaker SMIC recently completed its IPO on the STAR Market. By Wednesday, SMIC’s market value was 416.4 billion yuan, making it the market's top firm by valuation.

In the first half, 55 Chinese technology, media and telecom IPOs were completed, with the STAR Market remaining the main venue for the listing of such companies, according to a report of PWC.