The China Securities Free Float Index, a new index that is designed to reflect the overall performances of all-tradable shares in China's two stock exchanges, is to debut on February 27, the China Securities Index Company said on Sunday.

 

China started the split-share structure reform last April, aiming to make all shares of listed companies in China tradable.

 

The split-share structure, referring to the existence of both tradable shares and a large volume of non-tradable shares owned by the State and legal persons, is believed by many to be the major reason why the market has been bearish for such a long time.

 

About one third of the companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges have seen all their shares become tradable after rounds of share structure reforms, but more are still waiting to join the reform.

 

As the current composite index covering all shares cannot show the performances of all-tradable shares separately, the China Securities Index Company decided to compile the new index that only includes the companies having finished their split-share reforms.

 

By February 16, 2006, the new index had chosen 358 sample shares, accounting for 26.42 percent of all A-shares (RMB-dominated) in the two exchanges.

 

Any new company completing the split-share reform in the future will be immediately included in the Free Float Index, the China Securities Index Company said.

 

(Xinhua News Agency February 20, 2006)