London Stock Exchange to open marketing office in Beijing

Mumbai: The London Stock Exchange is opening a marketing office in Beijing to better access the world's fastest growing market, the bourse said in a press release.

While the move will benefit Chinese companies already listed with the bourse, LSE said it also is an indication of its commitment to the Chinese market.

The representative office, the second overseas office for the LSE after Hong Kong, is being set up amid rising competition for Chinese companies where NYSE Euronext and Nasdaq have already opened representative offices.

Nasdaq is the current leader in China among the big global exchanges - excluding Hong Kong - 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.

LSE, with just six on its main market, reported no new listings last year when Nasdaq attracted 22.

LSE 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.

This brings the Chinese listings on LSE so far to 68, including Sinopec, Asia's largest oil refiner, and Air China, the country's flag carrier, have been listed in London.

Overseas stock exchanges are vying for initial public offers in cash-rich China, where the economy has grown by nearly 11.5 per cent in 2007.

China's economy has seen double-digit growth for five consecutive years.

China is persuading its companies to list domestically and its onshore listings in 2007 outstripped both New York and London, and that momentum is expected to be maintained in 2008.