Creating exclusive "incubators" for hard technology enterprises
2025-06-24
The China Securities Regulatory Commission recently released the "Opinions on Setting up a Science and Technology Innovation Growth Layer on the Science and Technology Innovation Board to Enhance Institutional Inclusiveness and Adaptability". This incremental reform measure reconstructs the interactive logic between the capital market and technological innovation from the basic system, and creates exclusive capital "incubators" for unprofitable hard technology enterprises. It is a key step in the deepening of China's science and technology finance system reform. With the arrival of a new wave of technological revolution, enterprises in cutting-edge fields such as artificial intelligence and commercial aerospace are experiencing a long cycle of "burning money for research and development, technological breakthroughs, and commercial monetization". Technology oriented enterprises have also put forward diversified demands for the capital market. The Third Plenum of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to build a technology finance system that is compatible with technological innovation. The Central Financial Work Conference listed technology finance as the top of the "five major articles", fully demonstrating the urgency of deep integration of capital and technology. Currently, the capital market is facing a dual challenge, which is to address the difficulty of financing for unprofitable enterprises while also preventing risks for investors due to information asymmetry. Setting up a science and technology innovation growth layer on the Science and Technology Innovation Board is an institutional innovation that responds to this two-way demand, providing a capital channel for "valuable technologies" and establishing a multi-level risk "buffer zone" for the market. This will further leverage the advantages of the capital market in promoting the formation of innovative capital and optimizing resource allocation, and provide greater support for high-level technological self-reliance and the development of new quality productivity, enhancing the quality and efficiency of science and technology innovation services provided by the Science and Technology Innovation Board. The positioning of the growth layer of science and technology innovation is very clear: a technology-based enterprise with significant breakthroughs in key service technologies, broad commercial prospects, and sustained R&D investment, but currently still in the unprofitable stage. Allowing unprofitable enterprises to have a "dedicated track", breaking the shackles of "profit only theory", and incorporating all existing and newly registered unprofitable technology enterprises into hierarchical management, this design is not "lowering the threshold", but "precise positioning". At the same time, adding "U" (Unprofessional) as a special identifier after the stock abbreviation of science and technology innovation growth layer enterprises not only indicates investment risks, but also forms a reasonable expectation of the market for the growth cycle of technology enterprises. Science and technology innovation growth level enterprises should regularly disclose the reasons for not being profitable and the impact on the company; Individual investors participating in the trading of science and technology innovation growth stocks should meet the suitability management requirements for investors on the science and technology innovation board. This reflects the risk management with Chinese characteristics, such as equipping investors with a "risk statement", allowing the market to embrace innovation while maintaining the bottom line of risk. In addition, six new measures have been added to the Science and Technology Innovation Board, which will enhance institutional inclusiveness and adaptability, open up capital channels for technology enterprises at different growth stages, and smooth the capital cycle of high-quality technology-based enterprises throughout the entire chain. For example, introducing a system of senior professional institutional investors and leveraging the professional expertise of top tier venture capitalists and industry funds to inject "market wisdom" into the review process. The pilot IPO pre review mechanism not only protects technical security but also accelerates review efficiency. Expand the scope of application of the fifth set of listing standards to include fields such as artificial intelligence, commercial aerospace, and low altitude economy, forming a capital agglomeration effect of hard technology. This reform aims to explore the organic combination of an effective market and a proactive government, strike a balance between "relaxation" and "management", coordinate and promote reform measures on the investment and financing sides, and better support high-quality science and technology innovation enterprises. In the short term, the growth layer of scientific and technological innovation will provide capital advancement space for unprofitable enterprises. In the long run, in terms of resource allocation, it will promote the tilt of capital towards hard technology and make the capital market truly a hub for the formation of innovative capital; In the dimension of market construction, the growth layer of science and technology innovation, as an experimental field in the experimental field, will accumulate experience for the comprehensive registration system reform. When the capital market is willing to pay for future profits and investors understand that R&D investment is more valuable than short-term profits, technology and capital form a positive cycle, which is exactly the fertile ground needed for the development of new quality productivity. The blueprint for reform has been drawn up, but the effectiveness of implementation depends on the execution of details. Inclusiveness does not mean giving up regulation. In practice, we must crack down severely on illegal and irregular behaviors such as interest transfer and commercial corruption. Regulation should be sharp and sharp, and we must strictly crack down on malicious illegal behaviors such as fraudulent issuance and financial fraud. The construction of the growth layer of scientific and technological innovation should avoid "slacking off in troubled waters" and cannot become a safe haven for problematic enterprises. (New Society)
Edit:He Chuanning Responsible editor:Su Suiyue
Source:ECONOMIC DAILY
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