China's securities regulator has announced that it will resume initial public offerings by companies after halting the fundraising mechanism since July.
The suspension was part of emergency measures to contain a massive meltdown that sent the stock market plunging over 40 percent in just a few weeks.
The regulator says ten of the 28 companies that had already gained regulatory approval for new share sales before the market rout will be among the first to launch their IPOs after Nov 20.
It has also announced a set of new measures to reform the current IPO mechanism, which marked a further step toward a market-oriented listing system.
The measures include scrapping the requirement for full payment of shares in advance when an investor bids to subscribe to new shares.
The CSRC said this will prevent the IPOs from locking up too much capital.
At the same time, the regulator further simplified the pricing procedure for small-cap IPOs under 20 million shares, which will help reduce the financing costs of smaller companies.
For more on this issue, we're joined by Mike Bastin, Director of The China Business Centre based in London.
