The China Securities Regulatory Commission, led by new chairman Wu Qing, will treat opinions, suggestions and criticism from all parties seriously and implement the pragmatic and feasible ones immediately.
It said in a statement after holding a slew of seminars with retail and institutional investors, listed companies and foreign institutions over the past two days.
“The capital market has wide implications, and the more complex and severe the situation is, the more open we should be to heed advice and pool wisdom,” the CSRC said in the statement.
The unusually humble tone underscores the heightened pressure among China’s top leaders to inject confidence in stocks after three consecutive years of losses. Sentiment had been weak all around, battered by a sluggish economy and a protracted slump in the housing market, and earlier piecemeal policies including state buying had proved little success to avert a $5 trillion rout.
China appointed Wu as its new markets chief earlier this month, replacing Yi Huiman in a surprise move to insiders. The securities veteran has a reputation of having “zero tolerance” for wrongdoings, and his appointment had ignited hopes for more forceful measures to revive the market, with the benchmark CSI 300 index paring almost all losses this year.
Wu has been working around the clock even during the Spring Festival holiday since he took office, the Shanghai Securities News reported, without identifying its source.
The CSRC is studying a range of measures to strengthen IPO approvals, promote dividend payouts, and crack down on financial fraud, the China Securities Journal reported Tuesday. Efforts will also be made to speed up approvals for equity funds and guide more medium-to-long term funds into the stock market, according to the report.
In another sign of the change, the regulator is allowing public comments under its latest post on the official WeChat account.
At a separate meeting on Sunday, China’s top disciplinary body also ordered the securities regulator to face up to its own inadequacies and rectify its work style to beef up oversight, in a bid to cultivate a stable market, according to the CSRC statement.