China to survey brokerage industry

Chinese regulators are planning a detailed survey of the country's troubled brokerage industry, the Xinhua news agency reported. The China Securities Regulatory Commission will use results of its survey of more than 100 brokerages to develop long-term plans for the industry and "to find out solutions to various fundamental problems in the sector," the report quoted Tu Guangshao, a deputy director of the commission, as saying. Regulators suspended initial public offerings on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges for five months last year amid a raft of financial scandals, and Wang Xiaoshi, one of the commission's senior officials in charge of IPOs, was arrested in November on charges of bribery.