The increased sophistication of the mainland's capital market and a flood of funds into Shanghai and Shenzhen's bourses are creating good conditions for red chips to list at home.

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Red chips are stocks of companies incorporated and listed in Hong Kong, but whose main businesses are on the mainland. Most of the red chips are large conglomerates that listed on the Hong Kong market in the 1990s.

By the end of November, 85 red chips with a combined market value of HK$2 trillion were listed in Hong Kong, accounting for 21 percent of the bourse's overall market value 3 percentage points higher than those of H shares, which are of mainland incorporated companies listed in Hong Kong.

Red chips' eagerness to return to the home market is inspired by a 127 percent main index growth in Shanghai in 2006, and also encouraged by the successful dual listing model of blue chips such as the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.

"China's securities regulator is creating favorable conditions for red chips to come home," an official with the China Securities Regulatory Commission said.

Listing regulations currently do not allow overseas incorporated companies to directly list on the mainland.

However, as red chips are in fact mainland companies, it will not be a big problem for them to list in Shanghai through some share restructuring.

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