(Yicai Global) Feb. 17 -- The novel coronavirus epidemic gripping China has prompted 125 mainland-listed companies to delay publishing their annual earnings reports for last year.

Of the 3,776 firms traded on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, just five had released their annual reports as of Feb. 14, while 125 plan to postpone them by as little as a day and by as much as 91 days. Twenty-three are delaying by more than 30 days, Yicai Global calculated based on public data.

According to the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the annual earnings reports of listed companies must be made public within four months of the end of each fiscal year, meaning by April 30 at the latest. But industry insiders have said that firms in severely affected areas may not be able to complete the audit in time.

Given the significant impact of the virus epidemic, the Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants is in touch with the authorities over extending the deadline, it said in a statement on Feb. 13.

"Some of our projects are affected," a managing partner at a large accounting firm told Yicai Global. "For example, we cannot conduct on-site audit work for some projects in severely affected areas, and audit procedures for some projects are affected to varying degrees, which has slowed down the progress of the annual report audit work.

Some overseas exchanges have made arrangements for the extension of report disclosures. For example, the Singapore Exchange is allowing listed companies with significant operations in China that are affected by the epidemic to postpone the release of their 2019 reports for up to two months.

"The annual report audit is very tense, and the isolation of some employees and the project team's inability to work on site add to the difficulty of disclosing the report on schedule," the managing partner said. "We hope that the regulator can further extend the deadline from April 30 to the end of May or June to ensure quality audits."

Editors: Dou Shicong, Peter Thomas