China will support qualified foreign-invested companies to list on its onshore stock markets, as part of a sweeping move by Beijing to further open up its mainland capital market and lure foreign direct investment back to the world’s second-largest economy.The mainland’s stock exchanges will optimise communication services with companies seeking to list before they file applications, according to a circular jointly released by three government agencies, including the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Commerce.The move comes as Beijing’s top policymakers work to reform China’s US$12 trillion stock market. China’s domestic stock exchanges are dominated by locally listed companies. Currently, only a handful of companies with foreign ownership trade on China’s onshore exchanges, such as Foxconn Industrial Internet and cooking utensil maker Zhejiang Supor. A diversification of listed companies on the domestic markets would offer mainland investors a proxy for investing overseas. A diversification of ownership for listed companies on the domestic markets would attract more inflows from global investors, according to analysts.Efforts to reform China’s capital markets and internationalise the Chinese currency have gathered pace recently. The circular comes just days after Hong Kong authorities said that the city would launch government-bond futures trading in August, in a move investors said would promote the use of the yuan overseas. In April, mainland China’s financial regulators scrapped the restrictions on foreign investors trading the nation’s onshore sovereign-bond futures.Select foreign equity-investment firms would be allowed to participate in domestic stock offerings as strategic investors, the circular said. Regulations would also be revised to encourage M&As involving foreign and domestic firms, while streamlining management procedures and strengthening coordination across government departments, it said.Foreign investors would also be encouraged to invest in government-bond futures to minimise financial risk, and overseas investment institutions would be allowed to operate the business on advising on fund investments, according to the circular. Foreign-invested companies would be given easy quotas on cross-border financing, it said.