(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-17 13:32

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is set to open a marketing office in Beijing this week to catch up in the lucrative listing business in China, the daily Financial Times reported Wednesday.

The representative office, the second overseas office for the LSE after Hong Kong, is being set up amid unprecedented competition for Chinese companies that has seen London lose out to US markets, it said.

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Both NYSE Euronext and Nasdaq opened representative offices after Chinese regulations were changed last year and all the international bourses have produced specialist Chinese marketing material in an effort to attract flotations.

According to the report, Nasdaq is the leader in China among the big global exchanges - excluding Hong Kong, the traditional route for Chinese companies to access international investors - in terms of numbers of Chinese mainland listings, with 55 valued at a total of $56 billion. The NYSE, second in number with 39, has attracted bigger companies, with an average market value of $30 billion.

London trails with just six on its main market, and no new listings last year when Nasdaq attracted 22.

London has succeeded in attracting small companies to its junior Alternative Investment Market, with 62 Chinese companies traded there, but has not converted this into more profitable full listings.

The report said that China's decision to embrace capital markets and lessen the almost total reliance on banks for corporate funding has transformed its stock market in the last four to five years. However, China is also making efforts to persuade its companies to list domestically.

China's onshore listings in 2007 outstripped both New York and London, a momentum expected to maintain in 2008.