The commission revenue of China's stock brokerage firms may more than double the figure of 2006 to reach 65 billion yuan (around 8.4 billion U.S. dollars) in 2007, according to a research report released Tuesday.

The prediction comes on the back of the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges repeatedly hitting new highs in recent weeks, said the report jointly released by Shanghai Securities News and Guotai Jun'an Securities Research Institute.

The dealings of stocks and funds reached 2.62 trillion yuan in January, or 130.9 billion yuan per day, which more than tripled the daily amount of 38.4 billion yuan in 2006, said the report.

"If the January performance is maintained throughout the year, dealings in 2007 will reach 31.55 trillion yuan. The volume will still be 11.11 trillion yuan if dealings dropped to the 2006 level for the rest of the year," said Liang Jing, a senior analyst with Guotai Jun'an and an author of the report.

Taking an average of the two figures, Liang predicted that dealings for 2007 would total around 20 trillion yuan and the commission income would be 65 billion yuan.

Liang said that the rapidly increasing market dealings were being supported by a high turnover rate.

"The turnover rate will be maintained at a high level in the short term due to the fluidity of the market and system reforms, although it will lower in the long run as investors become institutionalized," said Liang.

Source: Xinhua