China's total futures trading in 2004 was valued at 14 trillion yuan (1.7 trillion US dollars), up 45 percent year-on-year, according to the latest figures released by the China Securities Regulatory Commission in Beijing over the weekend.

The commission, which oversees the markets of stock, futures and other securities, said a total of 97 firms were added to the list of listed firms on the Chinese mainland last year, bringing the total number of listed firms to 1,377.

Through stocks and bonds offering, Chinese firms gathered 86.6 billion yuan (10.5 billion US dollars) worth of capital on the domestic securities market last year, up 5.28 percent, the commission said.

A total of 55 funds that specialize in securities markets were launched in 2004, which collected 186.2 billion yuan (22.7 billionUS dollars) in capital, up 158.7 percent, more than the combined volume of the previous years, said the commission.

During a two-day national meeting on securities and futures regulation held by the commission, which ended on Friday, the commission said it will continue to facilitate a multi-tiered securities market system, and deepen initial public offering systems this year.

The watchdog introduced regulations on a new pricing system forinitial public offerings (IPOs), also known as an IPOs enquiry system, from Jan. 1, 2005.

This represents one of the major efforts it has made to strengthen institutional arrangement for the country's securities market and protect the legitimate interests of investors.

Under the new regulations, firms planning to launch IPOs will have to inquire about share prices among institutional investors, and the final IPO price will be decided by the result of the inquiry.

The commission also vowed to promote corporate governance amonglisted firms and healthy development of securities firms and institutional investors, and continue to protect the legitimate interests of minority stock holders.

Sentiment has been weak for the past four years due to irregularities by listed firms and structural problems of the stock markets.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed on the last trading of 2004 at 1,266.5 points from 1,492 points in January of the year, against the background that the Chinese economy has beengrowing rapidly by an annual rate of about 9 percent since 1978.

The Chinese government formulated a nine-point strategy early last year to create a better environment for the healthy and smooth development of the securities market.

The commission has since introduced a number of innovative rules to regulate markets, and moved to improve transparency of policy-making to stem corruption.

The agency now reveals the names of participating members of its committee that vote on each initial public offering application on its website for public supervision.

The commission also issued regulations late last year which give minority stockholders the ability to influence major decisions in the listed companies they invested in.

Source: Xinhua