China Pledges IPO Support for Firms in Troubled Northeast

(Beijing) – China plans to help “qualified” companies in the country’s northeast to list on stock exchanges, the government said Wednesday, as part of a raft of supporting policies for the troubled area that was once the country’s industrial powerbase.

The three provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang in China’s northeast, which once formed the country’s industrial heartland and are home to a concentration of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) involved in steel, mining and other heavy industries, are now facing mass layoffs and bankruptcies.