On September 17, the SZSE Guidelines No. 3 for Stock Issuance and Underwriting Business – Management of Stock Codes (the “Guidelines for Management of Stock Codes” or the “Guidelines”) was officially released. Effective from 1 October 2021, the Guidelines will be applied when issuers publish a stock issuance proposal or a prospectus or initiate stock issuance. Subsequently, SZSE will synchronously revise corresponding content in the Business Guidelines No. 2 for Stock Issuance and Underwriting – Handling of IPO and Listing Business on the Main Board and the Guidelines for IPO and Listing on the ChiNext Board.

The Guidelines for Management of Stock Codes follows the basic principles of adopting unified rules, being open and transparent, maintaining flexibility and making no exceptions. It has laid out the methods that issuers may use to determine a stock code such as stock code lottery and selection. When the stock code lottery and selection method is used, SZSE’s issuance and underwriting business system will randomly select 10 alternative codes from the first 100 unused codes (in ascending order) within the stock code segment corresponding to the board on which the issuer is going to list its stock, and the issuer chooses one code from the 10 alternative codes as its stock code. The lottery code section will be alternated and supplemented based on the numerical values of stock codes from small to big, to maintain the number of the lottery code section at 100, thus ensuring the lottery and selection is fair and just.

Next, SZSE will, under the overall arrangements and guidance of China Securities Regulatory Commission, refine relevant rules on issuance and listing business, optimize the issuance and underwriting business system, and continuously improve the quality and efficiency of services.