China should create a Nasdaq-style bourse for firms specialising in science and technology to help keep creative assets, Wu Zezhong, China's Vice Minister of Science and Technology, said on Sunday.
"For individual firms, overseas listings certainly can help them to finance their business, but they are a loss of creative assets for China from a macro point of view," Wu told a financial forum in Xianghe, Hebei.
His comments marked a departure from the general support for overseas listings. The Ministry of Science and Technology is not directly involved in developing securities policy.
Wu said most overseas-listed China companies were grown with the country's financial support, but their success benefited foreigners. Chinese Internet stocks, including Baidu and Sohu, have made a big splash with listings on Nasdaq, the US electronic screen-based equity securities exchange. "Neither the (Chinese) government nor the people can share in the growth of these innovative firms," said Wu.
"If all the innovative and hi-tech firms went abroad, then it would be impossible to build up an innovation-led economy, and the objective of good but rapid economic development would become empty talk."