Stabilizing stock market requires policy review

By ruling out immediate stock listing reform on Wednesday, China's securities watchdog may have temporarily saved the main stock indexes from falling below the lowest point reached last summer. But it is far from enough to put the stock market back on the track of healthy development.

The regulatory watchdog should make efforts to clear the confusion over the implementation and effects of the new stock market policy because investor sentiment is yet to recover from the repeated plunges of Chinese shares. Though the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index barely managed to climb up the psychologically important threshold of 3,000 points on Thursday, it has lost 15 percent in the first two weeks of this year.

Had the stock market been allowed to drift downward amid fears that the forthcoming shift of stock listing from an approval-based mechanism to one based on registration would lead to a surge in stock supply soon, it would have been possible that retail investors would flee the tumultuous market and undermine the hard-won mild recovery achieved in autumn and winter after the rout last summer.