"Embrace Innovation, Root in Science for New Growth"

In recent years, under the guidance and support of a series of national policies, China's capital market has conducted in-depth research and improved the institutional arrangements for issuance, listing, mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, refinancing, and venture investment. It has actively guided the acceleration of resource elements towards the real economy and the field of scientific and technological innovation, strengthened services for high-level scientific and technological self-reliance, and supported the growth and strengthening of new quality productive forces, achieving positive progress.

Firstly, the market structure continues to optimize, with the "hard technology" content of the板块 increasing day by day. Supporting the growth and strengthening of new quality productive forces is not only an important way for the capital market to serve the real economy but also an important opportunity for the capital market to achieve high-quality development. "Hard technology" companies have broad development prospects, large profit expansion space, and sufficient value growth potential. The increase in "hard technology" content in the capital market is conducive to enhancing the ability to reward investors. For example, an important source of long-term returns in the US stock market is the growth of technology companies, with technology companies contributing nearly 60% to the total returns of the S&P 500 since the beginning of 2019.

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As of September 13, 2024, there are a total of 1,856 strategic emerging industry companies listed in the A-share market, with a total market value of 14.33 trillion yuan, accounting for 34.69% and 18.48% of the total number and market value, respectively, which is 24.94 percentage points and 14.60 percentage points higher than at the end of 2018. There are a total of 2,546 companies in the fields of advanced manufacturing and technology, accounting for 47.59%, which is 6.92 percentage points higher than at the end of 2018. Looking at the specific industry distribution, the top six industries with the most listed companies are machinery equipment, pharmaceuticals and biology, electronics, basic chemical industry, power equipment, and computers, most of which are related to new quality productive forces.

Secondly, the market function is increasingly sound, and the service coverage and precision have achieved a qualitative improvement. New quality productive forces have the characteristics of high technology, high efficiency, and high quality. Enterprises representing the development direction of new quality productive forces, especially those in strategic emerging industries and future industries, often have characteristics such as high R&D investment, large financing needs, long commercialization cycles, and high operational risks, which require more refined services from the capital market. In recent years, China's capital market has vigorously promoted key institutional innovations, enriched capital market tools, products, and services according to the needs of technology companies in terms of characteristics, development laws, investment and financing, and incentives and constraints, and the multi-level capital market system with staggered development, complementary functions, and interconnectivity has become more mature, and is more adaptable to the development needs of new quality productive forces.

Firstly, the listing conditions are more inclusive. Since 2019, a total of 1,523 companies in the strategic emerging industry field have been listed on the A-share market, with a total initial fundraising scale of 1.69 trillion yuan. There are 49 newly listed companies that did not achieve profitability in the year before listing, with a total fundraising scale of 136.7 billion yuan. Since listing, these unprofitable companies have continued to strengthen their scientific and technological capabilities, with R&D expenditure accounting for more than 40% of operating income. By 2023, 9 technology companies have achieved profitability.

Secondly, it has created conditions for formulating personalized equity incentive plans for companies. This has helped companies improve the precision of incentives for core teams and business backbones, stimulated the enthusiasm and creativity of employees, and gathered innovative talents for the long-term development of companies. Since 2019, a total of 2,343 companies on the A-share market have implemented 3,728 equity incentive plans. The effect of equity incentives on performance improvement is relatively obvious. From 2019 to 2023, the average annual growth rate of operating income and net profit of listed companies implementing equity incentive plans was 12.58% and 9.96%, respectively, which is nearly 6 percentage points higher than the average annual growth rate of operating income and net profit of all A-share companies during the same period.

Finally, it has enriched the reorganization payment tools and improved the efficiency of corporate mergers and acquisitions. According to Wind statistics, since 2019, A-share companies have completed a total of 567 major asset reorganization transactions, with a total transaction scale of 2.81 trillion yuan, of which 377 transactions were participated by enterprises as bidders, with a total transaction scale of 2.17 trillion yuan. The transaction payment methods involve cash, equity, equity+cash, shares+assets, shares+cash+assets, shares+cash+convertible bonds/exchangeable bonds, and other types. Looking at the purpose of mergers and acquisitions, horizontal integration, diversified strategy, and strategic cooperation are the three main purposes. Most enterprises aim to achieve resource integration and enhance synergy through mergers and acquisitions, with a corresponding total transaction scale of 1.71 trillion yuan.

Thirdly, it supports enterprises to deeply cultivate the fertile soil of innovation and consolidate the foundation of scientific and technological攻关. Data shows that in 2023, the total R&D expenditure of A-share companies was 1.56 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.89%. The R&D intensity was 2.53%, an increase of 0.18 percentage points from the previous year. Among them, the total R&D expenditure of technology and advanced manufacturing enterprises in 2023 was 0.78 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.66%. The R&D intensity was 5.14%, an increase of 0.29 percentage points from the previous year. The continuous increase in R&D investment has accelerated the pace of enterprises'攻关 of key core technologies, and scientific and technological innovation achievements of listed companies continue to emerge. For example, in early September this year, the injection of SHR-1918 under Hengrui Pharmaceutical was included in the list of breakthrough treatment varieties announced by the Drug Evaluation Center of the National Medical Products Administration because it has better treatment effects in treating homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia than existing treatment methods; Loongson released a new generation of four-core desktop CPU products 3A6000 in 2023, with performance reaching the level of Intel Core 10th generation four-core products, raising China's general processor design level to the level of "running in parallel" with international advanced levels; the "Fuxing High-speed Train" project participated by China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation won the Special Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award in 2023, and so on.