More companies go public on sci-tech board

While feeding into integrated development in innovation, technology companies in the Yangtze River Delta region also feed on local resources.

To date, 58 companies in the region have gone public on the sci-tech innovation board, accounting for 45 percent of the country’s total. Of them, 33 percent raised money from the Yangtze River Delta Capital Market Service Base.

Initiated by Pudong and Shanghai Stock Exchange in November 2018, the base aims at investing in brilliant ideas and helping with public listing. It has especially provided strong support to regional economic recovery in the post-pandemic period.

The base welcomed 41 new members this week, bringing the total to 126, mostly financial and investment institutions as well as law offices and consultancy firms.

In addition, nine regional cities — Yangzhou, Wenzhou, Jinhua, Quzhou, Taizhou, Wuhu, Xuancheng, Chizhou and Anqing — have newly joined the base. All 28 major cities in the region are part of the base. 

“Many technology startups just get immersed in hard work. They don’t know about the capital market,” said Shao Junbin, chairman of Shanghai ZJ Bio-Tech Co.

ZJ is a leading domestic molecular diagnosis company. It developed detection products for SARS, Ebola, H1N1 swine flu, H7N9 bird flu and the Zika virus. It became widely known during the COVID-19 pandemic for making nucleic acid testing kits.

The company submitted an application to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on June 1 to launch on the sci-tech innovation board.

“For biopharmaceutical companies like ZJ, it requires a lot of effort and money in the early stage of R&D. The sci-tech innovation board, however, offers hope to life sciences startups with promising projects yet without profits,” Shao said.

He said members from the base have helped the company with some stock market queries with professional analysts and interpretation of related policies. The base has offered such services to more than 3,000 companies, according to the Pudong Finance Bureau.

So far, the 58 listed technology companies in the region have raised a total of 118.5 billion yuan (US$16.9 billion) from the sci-tech innovation board, accounting for 60 percent of the country’s total. Their market value has reached 1.5 trillion yuan.

Among them, 19 companies are from Shanghai, including 12 from Pudong. Most are engaged in biomedicine and new-generation information technology.

“Pudong has become a fountain of the vitality of the sci-tech innovation board and injects new drive in the reform of the capital market as well as the integrated development in innovation,” said Hang Yingwei, Pudong’s director.