With State Council approval, the China Securities Regulatory Commission published Opinions on deepening reform of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange’s ChiNext board, setting out a broad package of measures spanning issuance and listing, refinancing and M&A, secondary-market mechanisms, and full-process supervision. The reforms aim to expand the board’s capacity to serve growth-oriented innovative companies, including eligible high-quality pre-profit issuers, while tightening accountability and risk controls across the review and registration chain. Key changes include introducing a fourth set of ChiNext listing standards for high-quality innovative and entrepreneurial firms in emerging and future industries, establishing an IPO pre-review mechanism, and further reforming new-share issuance pricing. A pilot will allow local governments to submit information on candidate issuers to the CSRC and Shenzhen Stock Exchange as a reference for review and registration, without making this a required step, and limited to firms that have filed IPO tutoring records and plan to apply under the third or fourth listing standards. The Opinions also propose a shelf issuance system for follow-on financing, optimisation of simplified refinancing procedures, support for more flexible equity incentive performance metrics, and facilitation of ChiNext issuers’ use of products such as sci-tech innovation and green bonds. On oversight, the package reinforces scrutiny of IPO pricing, intensifies enforcement against fraudulent issuance and financial misreporting, strengthens delisting implementation, and further elevates intermediaries’ “gatekeeper” responsibilities. On the investment side, the reforms would introduce mechanisms such as market makers, real-time confirmation for block trades, and after-hours fixed-price ETF trading, while allowing fund investment advisers to allocate ChiNext ETFs and expanding related index, ETF and derivatives offerings. The CSRC will work with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and market participants to implement the measures, and plans to continue publishing representative cases and policy explanations to support rollout.
China Securities Regulatory Commission 2026-04-10
China Securities Regulatory Commission issues ChiNext reform opinions adding a fourth listing standard, IPO pre-review and new trading mechanisms
The China Securities Regulatory Commission, with State Council approval, has issued Opinions on deepening reform of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange’s ChiNext board, covering issuance and listing, refinancing and mergers and acquisitions, secondary-market mechanisms, and supervision. Key measures include a new fourth listing standard for high-quality innovative firms, an IPO pre-review mechanism, reforms to new-share pricing and follow-on financing, and stronger oversight of pricing, disclosure, delisting and intermediary responsibilities. The package also expands market-making and ETF trading mechanisms and broadens ChiNext-related index, ETF and derivatives offerings.