(Bloomberg)
Updated: 2007-01-31 14:34

The nation's largest financial-services companies, including Bank of China Ltd., Industrial & Commercial Bank and China Life Insurance Co., have raised a combined 95 billion yuan since China lifted a one-year ban on domestic share sales in May. The sales helped the value of Chinese stocks more than double in the past year, to more than $1 trillion.

The regulator is pushing further large-scale share sales by its financial institutions to stop the mainland stock indices from rising too fast, equity analysts said.

The Shanghai and Shenzhen 300 Index, which tracks the 300 most representative A-share stocks, jumped 153 percent in the past year. It advanced 77 percent in the past three months.

Local Bubble

"There have been talks of bubble in the local stock indices," Tang said. "There is too much money chasing too few investment options."

The problem has been aggravated by the inflow of funds -- known as "hot money" -- on anticipation of further appreciation of the yuan. The Chinese currency has gained 1.3 percent against the dollar in the past three months.

Industrial Bank Co., part-owned by a unit of HSBC Holdings Plc, last week sold 16 billion yuan of shares in Shanghai.

Tuesday's regulatory announcement did not reveal the pricing or timing of Ping An's Shanghai sale. China Life, after getting approval to sell A shares on Dec. 15, began gauging investor demand for the offering four days later.

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