Official: China May Allow Foreign Listings in Shanghai in 2011

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SHANGHAI, Jul. 8 – China may open the Shanghai stock exchange to foreign companies next year, allowing them to sell shares and placing the city as an emerging world financial center.

“The preparation work is proceeding quite nicely,” said Fang Xinghai, director general of Shanghai’s financial services office, in a Bloomberg TV interview. Fang said that he hoped overseas companies would be allowed to list “sometime next year.”

Many companies have expressed interest in listing on the Shanghai bourse when China’s opens up the world’s largest market for foreign stock sales.

According to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers report, local companies may raise RMB500 billion in initial public offerings in Shanghai and Shenzhen this year, eclipsing any other country.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Shanghai stock exchange “are taking the lead” in preparing rules governing stock offerings by overseas companies in the city, Fang said.