(Yicai Global) July 14 -- The number of firms newly listing on Chinese stock markets this month will be 37 by July 22, surpassing previous months, and the figure throughout this month will hit a record high for the year, public stock exchange data show.

Initial public offerings on the Chinese stock markets are speeding up, according to the statistics. The Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission has fast-tracked IPO reviews, enabling more firms to go public, and companies with approvals in hand are opting to list as soon as possible to catch the wave of Chinese stock markets, which have been going gangbusters recently, insiders said.

The week from yesterday to July 17 will see 15 stocks start subscriptions and it is likely to log the most weekly IPOs this year to date. These 15 issues are expected to release more than 600 million shares and raise over CNY10 billion (USD1.4 billion), per preliminary estimates.

Firms with listing approvals from the CSRC can choose when to go public at their discretion, per existing rules, market players told Yicai Global.

The CSRC has accelerated reviews to help companies raise money as quickly as possible.

The agency has approved 161 of the 165 applications it has checked this year, 97.58 percent of the total, per data from the Choice financial data platform under Chinese financial and stock information provider East Money Information. The CSRC reviewed only 98 IPO applications in the same period last year and approved 87 of them, or 88.78 percent.

Most Chinese companies must obtain approval from the CSRC’s issuance examination committee for their IPO applications, but the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s Nasdaq-style Star Market and the Shenzhen Stock Market’s ChiNext board use the internationally accepted IPO registration mechanism. The agency thus only reviews the prospectuses of firms applying to list on these two boards.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Ben Armour