The Chinese pharmaceutical group Watson Biotech was set to become the first Chinese company to be floated on the Paris stock exchange when it listed with the Paris Bourse by the end of the year, the Paris Bourse board said on Thursday.

Euronext, which groups the stock exchange markets in Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Lisbon, confirmed that it was the first time for a Chinese company to be listed on its exchanges.

Based in Xi'an, capital of China's northwestern Shaanxi province, the group specializes in extracting active ingredients from trees that are used in the generic anti-cancer drug paclitaxel.

"It will be a first in continental Europe," said the chairman of the financial establishment, Europe Finance and industry (Efi), Louis Thannberger, who is advising the Chinese group on the initial public offering and who noted that the listing would be made by the end of the year.

Some 40 Chinese groups have been listed in London, among which half appear on the AIM (Alternative Investment Market) for small companies.

According to Thannberger, Euronext has done extremely efficient marketing to attract Chinese medium-sized companies. Watson would most likely list on the Alternext market for small and medium-sized companies.

Watson posted a turnover of 7.6 million euros (9.8 million U.S. dollars) in 2005 and foresaw a doubling of that by 2008. Eighty percent of its production was exported to North America and Europe.

Source: Xinhua