Exchange promises innovation

THE Shanghai Stock Exchange said it will innovate and offer new products to help make the city a major international financial center.

A successful international financial center can't be built without an international equities market that should comprise a top stock exchange, world-leading financial institutions, various financial services and innovative financial products to lure institutional investors, said the world's sixth-largest bourse in a statement yesterday.

The Shanghai exchange will seize this opportunity to launch a new-generation trading system, enhance the development of the blue chip market, encourage mergers between listed companies, promote the bond market and block-trading system, and develop exchange-traded funds based on the key CSI 300 Index, the statement said.

Exchange-traded funds, also called index-based products, enable investors to buy or sell shares in an entire benchmark portfolio. China's mainland is planning to unveil ETFs to track the nation's broadest blue-chip stock index, with the ETF based on the CSI 300 Index, which groups the biggest 300 mainland-traded firms by value, set to launch this year.