China is launching its long-awaited Nasdaq-style stock market in the southern city of Shenzhen. Twenty eight small- and medium-sized enterprises are expected to debut on the new exchange.

It is designed to attract financing for new industries with the potential for high growth. Only recently have the economic conditions been judged right for mainland China to launch a new stock market – its third.

The Growth Enterprise Market, or Gem as it is already being called, was in the planning for more than 10 years.

It is designed to attract funding for the kind of innovative enterprises the government wants to nurture here – software companies, pharmaceutical firms and creative industries.

Gem’s focus on these new industries has drawn comparisons with New York’s Nasdaq exchange, although with less than 30 expected to list in Shenzhen it is a fraction of the size of the US exchange which lists nearly 4,000 clients.