Photo taken on Nov. 1, 2018 from the Baiyulan Plaza shows view of the Lujiazui area in Pudong of Shanghai, east China. (Photo: Xinhua)

It's not necessary for Chinese companies to rely on international markets to raise funds, as there's plenty of capital in China looking to invest in emerging companies, said Zhou Xiaochuan, former governor of the People's Bank of China (PBC), at the Lujiazui Forum on Thursday, an influential annual financial forum held in Shanghai. 

He touched on the topic of Chinese companies listed at the US stock market at a time when the US government has taken a more aggressive stand against China, including implicit threats to kick Chinese listings out of US stock exchanges.

According to Zhou, as China's deposits account for a very high proportion of GDP or more than 40 percent, so investment capital at home is plentiful. 

The environment of the Chinese mainland's own capital market is improving, including strict management of illegal practices, the yuan's internationalization level - which he said is "not far-away from" capital account convertibility - and opening-up reforms. 

Zhou said that due to currently fraying China-US relations, some Chinese companies are ready to seek listings elsewhere.

On Thursday, JD.com completed its nearly $4 billion secondary IPO in Hong Kong, another example of a Chinese tech giant looking to get packed up and leave the US market. The first giant was Alibaba, which went public in Hong Kong last year. 

Zhou said that the mainland markets have some way to go in terms of accounting, auditing and transparency compared with international standards, a situation reflected by the recent Luckin Coffee scandal.

But if more US-listed Chinese technology companies leave the US market in response to the new exorbitant US regulation, it would hurt the interests of US institutional and individual investors, Zhou said.

Global Times