(Yicai) Jan. 2 -- More than 1,000 Chinese companies registered for pre-listing tutoring last year despite the sluggish capital market and stricter reviews on initial public offerings, according to the latest data.

Some 1,002 firms registered for pre-IPO tutoring last year, down by 184 from the previous year, according to East Money-backed data provider Choice. Guangdong province ranked first among provincial-level regions with 166 firms, followed by Jiangsu province with 131, and Zhejiang province with 127. The three of them accounted for 42 percent of the total.

More and more Chinese companies decided to apply for IPOs on the Beijing Stock Exchange. Of the 1,002 firms that applied for pre-IPO tutoring, 311 declared their intended listing exchange, 277 being the Beijing Stock Exchange.

In the second half of last year alone, the BSE received 54 new IPO applications, the Shanghai Stock Exchange received seven, and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange nine, according to the bourses’ websites.

“The BSE is becoming a new choice for growth-type enterprises to go public because it is more inclusive to IPOs, has a tight and controllable listing schedule, reviews IPO applications fast, and offers clear rules for listed firms to transfer to another board,” Tan Gefei, chief consulting expert at Shenzhen Daxiang Investment Consulting, told Yicai.

It took an average of 620 days for companies to complete IPOs on the SZSE last year and 370 to do so on the SSE, statistics from data provider Wind Information showed. However, the average period for firms to complete their IPOs on the BSE was only 265 days.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione