China developers thrown backdoor listing lifeline

Staff reporter and Reuters

The China Securities Regulatory Commission will allow qualified developers to seek backdoor listings as regulators step up efforts to launch supportive policies to help developers raise funds.

It will also accelerate the development of real estate investment trusts backed by rental incomes from affordable housing, according to a statement from the website yesterday, channeling fresh capital into the struggling real estate sector.

Meanwhile, the CSRC said it pledges to set up long-term cooperate arrangements with US regulators in auditing US-listed Chinese companies.

The US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board said last week it has determined that it has full access to inspect and investigate firms in China for the first time in history.

CSRC also noted yesterday that it will accelerate overseas listings of internet platform companies.

This came as a federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected China Telecom Corporation's (0728) challenge to a Federal Communications Commission order withdrawing the company's authority to provide services in the United States.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected the bid by the US arm of China Telecom to reverse the order that took effect in January. The FCC said in 2021 that China Telecom (Americas) "is subject to exploitation, influence, and control by the Chinese government."

The FCC has raised mounting concerns about Chinese telecom companies in recent years which had won permission to operate in the US decades ago.

Separately, China plans to tighten rules to regulate environmentally friendly, or so-called green funds, as part of its efforts to rein in 'greenwashing' in the world's second-largest climate fund market, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The new rules could be in place in the first half of 2023, they said.

The country's funds regulator, Asset Management Association of China, has drafted regulations that will require mutual funds or exchange-traded funds to have at least 60 percent of their assets in the defined green investments category to be eligible to be sold as green products, they said.