Five years on Beijing Stock Exchange fuels China's hard tech push

Editor's note: Aaron Liu is a business reporter from CGTN. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Five years after its launch, the Beijing Stock Exchange (BSE) has moved beyond the question of whether it can establish a distinct role in China's capital market. The more important question now is how effectively it can support the country's specialized technology-driven SMEs.

The answer is increasingly visible in both the numbers and the companies behind them.

The BSE now has 339 listed companies with a combined market capitalization of around 840 billion yuan ($123.84 billion). Fifty-three companies have gone public in the first eight months of this year, accounting for more than half of all new A-share listings nationwide.

More than 60% of BSE-listed companies are national-level "little giant" enterprises, with R&D intensity and independent invention patent holdings more than twice the average of China's large industrial enterprises.

Having followed the BSE since its launch, I have seen this transformation firsthand.

In 2021, I visited two "little giant" companies facing financing challenges as they sought to turn technological breakthroughs into commercial products. Revisiting them ahead of the BSE's fifth anniversary showed how access to long-term capital can change their trajectory.

Beijing-based Tri-Prime Gene, for example, was then working to move laboratory research into production while facing the demands of lengthy R&D cycles. Since listing on the BSE and securing follow-on financing, it has accelerated clinical trials and industrialization, moving closer to large-scale manufacturing.

AVIC Forstar S&T, a leading domestic producer of high-end radio frequency interconnection products, faced a similar challenge. Its BSE listing provided stable growth capital while strengthening corporate governance, allowing it to deepen core-technology development and expand its global presence.

These cases highlight the BSE's broader value. Hard-tech SMEs often require substantial upfront investment, long R&D cycles and patience from investors — characteristics that do not always fit traditional financing models focused on profitability and short-term returns.

The BSE's innovation-oriented listing standards offer an alternative by placing greater emphasis on technological strength, core competitiveness and growth potential. More than 90% of its listed companies received venture capital backing before going public, linking early-stage investment with public-market financing.

Five years on, with more than 11 million qualified investors and daily turnover regularly exceeding 20 billion yuan ($2.95 billion), the BSE has established a distinct position in China's capital market.

Its significance lies not simply in creating another stock exchange, but in building a financing platform designed to grow with China's innovators. For hard-tech SMEs, that may prove to be the BSE's most lasting contribution.