On February 9, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing stock exchanges unveiled a coordinated package of measures to streamline and liberalise refinancing for listed companies, with an explicit tilt toward technology and innovation-driven firms. Regulators framed the changes as a precision “loosening” designed to support high‑quality issuers and sustain research and development spending, while tightening whole‑chain supervision to guard against abuse.
The most politically salient change is a substantial shortening of the refinancing interval for firms listed under the “unprofitable” science‑and‑technology standard. Where the previous rule imposed an 18‑month cooling‑off period, Shanghai and Shenzhen now set a six‑month minimum once prior proceeds are essentially exhausted; Beijing’s exchange goes further and removes any fixed interval, allowing small and innovative issuers to tap capital as needed.
Exchanges also expanded the “light‑asset, high‑R&D” recognition that the STAR and ChiNext boards pioneered to the main boards. The proposed main‑board metrics define “light assets” as tangible assets under 20% of total assets and “high R&D” as either a three‑year average R&D‑to‑sales ratio of at least 15%, or cumulative R&D of at least RMB 300 million with a three‑year average of at least 5%. Firms meeting these thresholds can exceed the previous 30% limit on proceeds used for replenishing working capital and instead allocate excess funds to core R&D and related growth initiatives.
The package tackles a practical problem that had constrained capital flows: companies whose shares had fallen below their IPO price found refinancing options sharply limited. The exchanges will permit properly governed firms in that situation to raise funds through competitive private placements and convertible bonds, provided proceeds go entirely to the main business and support continuous R&D and commercialisation of technology.
Operationally, the three exchanges introduced measures to cut administrative friction: streamlined disclosure for refinancing proposals, relaxed timing for when prior proceeds must be exhausted, and allowance for companies to cite already‑published filings rather than re‑submitting material. Each exchange tailored procedural details to its client base — Shanghai specifying the calculation node as the “date prior proceeds arrived,” Shenzhen improving coordination between routine supervision and review, and Beijing building rules intended to suit fast‑moving small‑and‑medium innovation firms.
But the package is emphatically not deregulation by default. Regulators signalled three concurrent priorities: favour outstanding technology firms, simplify processes, and strengthen end‑to‑end oversight. Exchanges underscored responsibilities for issuers and intermediaries, tightened disclosure and pre‑commitment rules for lock‑up private placements used in control‑change scenarios, and warned that “excessive financing” and speculative arbitrage would face strict scrutiny.
Market participants welcomed the changes as practical adjustments to an evolving market structure. Investment bankers and academics noted that many share price declines were the product of macro and liquidity factors rather than corporate deterioration; enabling orderly capital raising should help sustain long‑cycle R&D projects and reduce the risk of innovation stalling due to short‑term funding gaps. At the same time, officials’ insistence on limiting cross‑sector diversions and on detailed justification of financing necessity reflects a clear attempt to avoid repeat episodes of poorly targeted capital allocation.
The reforms build on policy shifts that began in mid‑2025, when regulators rolled out a “1+6” package for the STAR Market and activated a third listing standard for ChiNext, encouraging unprofitable but high‑potential technology firms to list. Extending light‑asset criteria to main boards signals a further maturation: China’s capital markets are aligning their listing and refinancing regimes to accommodate long‑horizon, R&D‑intensive business models beyond the specialist innovation boards.
For international investors the measures matter for three reasons. First, they may increase funding predictability for Chinese tech companies, improving the outlook for product development and global competitiveness. Second, the reforms illustrate Beijing’s attempt to marry market flexibility with top‑down control: support for innovation, but with defined guardrails to curb speculation and governance risk. Third, the differential treatment across exchanges — especially Beijing’s greater time flexibility for small innovators — highlights an increasingly segmented ecosystem in which issuers choose markets that fit their capital needs and risk profiles.
Implementation will be the test. Looser timing and broader eligibility can channel more capital into R&D, but only if supervision prevents circumvention and ensures proceeds are used as promised. Regulators and exchanges have signalled they will lean on disclosure duties, intermediary accountability and after‑the‑fact enforcement; the credibility of those mechanisms will determine whether the policy succeeds in deepening China’s technology ecosystem without fuelling reckless financing.