(Yicai Global) March 13 -- The upcoming science and technology innovation board has begun welcoming initial public offering applications during a testing period for a review system that will be launched in less than one week.

The IPO review system will begin testing on March 13, and come into use on March 18, state-backed The Paper reported yesterday, citing the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The sci-tech innovation board aims to make it easier for Chinese technology startups to go public and the new market is scheduled to be launched in the first half of this year.

New prospectuses will be electronically vetted in order to verify adherence to regulations, the SSE said in a notice on March 1. On the new market, the functions of acceptance, pre-IPO disclosure, enquiry, and consultation must be done online. The system was first deployed on March 9 for internal testing. 

The testing period will end on March 15, and all the files submitted until then will be treated as official IPO application documents. 

Editor: Emmi Laine