(Yicai) Jan. 23 -- Under a new five-year plan, Shanghai’s Pudong New Area is to be given greater autonomy to push ahead with deep reform and high-level opening-up.

The blueprint, released yesterday by China’s central government and spanning the years 2023 to 2027, puts forward 23 policies on opening to the outside world, technology innovation, talent, the business environment, and city governance, including a number of capital market-related initiatives.

The plan envisions that by 2027, Pudong New Area -- home to the Shanghai Free Trade Zone and already at the forefront of China’s reform and opening-up process -- will have mainly completed the pilot tasks of comprehensive reform, made breakthroughs in institutional innovation, and achieved outstanding results in building a high-standard market system and a high-level open economic system.

The plan proposes to improve the institutional arrangements for the listing, financing, and mergers and acquisitions of tech firms in the capital market and explore the launch of options products for the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s Science and Technology Innovation Board, or Star Market.

It also encourages venture capital, supporting private capital to set up VC funds and angel investors to form a community, while mentioning that the futures market should be developed in an orderly manner and shipping index futures need launching in a timely fashion.

More than 500 firms have gone public on the Star Market since it was set up in 2019, raising over CNY850 billion (USD118.4 billion) between them. The bourse has disclosed over 350 asset transactions of listed firms totaling around CNY58 billion.

The exchange-traded fund option tracking the SSE Science and Technology Innovation Board 50 Index began trading last June and is the Star Market’s first risk management tool. More options are likely to be issued in the future.

China’s first shipping futures debuted on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange last August, with the Shanghai Export Containerized Freight Index (Europe Service) as the underlying asset. More similar futures products are also expected to be launched in the future.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Martin Kadiev