Chinese Entrepreneurship Fair Launches in Beijing

BEIJING (AP) – A stock exchange founded in the Chinese capital to serve entrepreneurs opened trading with 81 companies on Monday amid a crackdown on tech giants that wiped more than $1 trillion of their market value abroad.

The Beijing Stock Exchange joins others in Shanghai and the southern city of Shenzhen. Mainland exchanges are usually off limits to foreign investors, but some Chinese companies have shares traded in Hong Kong, a separate Chinese territory open to global capital.

The ruling Communist Party has promised more support for wealth-generating entrepreneurs, but is tightening its control over tech companies and urging them to invest their own money in promoting Beijing’s industrial plans.

President Xi Jinping said in September that the Beijing exchange would “create a service innovation-focused capital position for small and medium-sized enterprises,” the ruling party’s term for private companies.

Chinese stock exchanges were established to raise money for state-owned enterprises, leading entrepreneurs to go abroad for capital.

Investors are concerned about the status of Chinese entrepreneurs after the ruling party tightened controls on tech companies last year by taking data security and other harsh measures. Investors have minted more than $1 trillion of the value of Tencent Holding and other tech giants on Wall Street and the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Shenzhen added a separate trade council for private companies in 2004. Shanghai added a board for technology companies in 2019.