Since the Shanghai Stock Exchange opened on December 19, 1990, China’s capital market has gradually matured over a period of 30 years of reforms and development. There were more than 4,100 listed companies in China at the end of 2020, with market value exceeding 77 trillion yuan (US$11.8t), the world’s third-largest by number of listed companies and second-largest by aggregate market value. In the early 1990s, all listed companies were State-owned enterprises, but now many more types of firms have gone public, including private and foreign companies. Over 96 percent of shareholders on the capital market are individuals or small- and mediumsized enterprises, according to the China Securities Regulatory Commission. The Chinese capital market is booming due to increased marketization, rule of law and internationalization, and the new round of reforms aims to improve the registration-based initial public offering mechanism, normalize the withdrawal mechanism and increase the proportion of direct financing.
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