Xinhua Financial Network and Shanghai Far East Credit Rating have formed an alliance to assign credit ratings to China’s publicly listed companies, South China Morning Post said. They announced their first batch of credit ratings on 35 B-share companies early in February and said that the second batch, of A-share companies, would be announced after Spring Festival. The alliance said that, unlike other Chinese credit rating agencies, they provided unsolicited ratings. Eventually, the pair hope to rate most of China’s publicly listed firms.
China currently has around 30 credit ratings firms. Shanghai Far East was the first professional credit-rating agency in China, set up in 1988 by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.