The Western Mining Co. Ltd., based in Xining, capital of northwest China's Qinghai Province, has applied for listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in April.

If the application is approved, it will be the first resource based venture listed in Hong Kong this year, according to Shanghai Securities Journal.

The company is hoping to raise 400 million US dollars through the listing and the money raised will be used to finance expansion programs, the newspaper quoted Deng Jiniu, chief development officer of the Western Mining Group, the Western Mining Co. Ltd.'s parent corporation, as saying.

"We don't have a plan to go public on the two bourses on the Chinese mainland in the near future," said Deng, although he did not rule out the possibility of engaging purchases on the domestic capital market.

The Western Mining Group has set up several subsidiaries, including the Western Rare and Precious Metals Co. Ltd. and the Western Salt Chemical Company.

The Western Mining Co. Ltd. is mainly engaged in development, production, processing, trading of non-ferrous mineral resources, as well as metallurgy.

The Western Mining Group estimates sales revenue in 2006 of 10 billion yuan.

Source: Xinhua