John Thain, chief executive officer of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Group, on Thursday invited entrepreneurial Chinese private and state-owned firms to list on the world's biggest stock exchange.

He told reporters that U.S. investors had tremendous interest in Chinese firms and the Chinese firms needed access to U.S. capital markets for fund-raising.

The New Oriental Education and Technology Group and Mindray Medical, two private Chinese firms, were listed earlier this year on the NYSE, and were among the top 10 best-performing initial public offerings (IPO) in the United States.

Thain said he was optimistic about the economic prospects of China and those of Chinese listed firms.

During his visit to China, he met with senior managers of Chinese firms aspiring for listing in the United States, including dairy, pharmaceutical and mobile phone producers.

He said Wednesday in Shanghai that he regretted China's biggest commercial bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), which was listed on Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges this year, did not list on the NYSE for what he called non-political reasons.

Chinese petrochemical giant Sinopec and telecommunications giant China Unicom had listed on the NYSE, but few major firms had followed.

He admitted the litigious environment in the United States had become a negative factor in attracting not only Chinese, but also U.S. firms for listing on the exchange.

The NYSE is pushing for revision of laws and regulations to reduce the expense of costly litigation for listed companies and that of complying with related laws, he said.

Source: Xinhua