China's securities authority Thursday began reviewing applications of the the first seven IPOs for listing on the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM), a Nasdaq-style market in China.

The seven enterprises covered fields of software, medical equipment and medicines. They planned to raise 2.27 billion yuan (332.65 million U.S. dollars).

The review meeting was for the first time opened to journalists, who were allowed to watch the meeting for about ten minutes.

The second batch of IPOs will be reviewed Friday and they plan to raise 1.13 billion yuan (165.30 million U.S. dollars), according to a report on the website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC).

IPO review meetings would be concentrated on these days, a CSRC official, who declined to be named, told Xinhua Monday.

"IPO applications sent to the regulator were concentrated. The regulator had to take into consideration forming a block and guard against speculation that might push up IPO stocks prices," the official said.

The CSRC started to accept applications of the GEM on July 26 and had received 155 applications for IPOs on the GEM as of Sept. 10. The CSRC has formally agreed to handle 149 enterprises' applications that aim to raise 33.61 billion yuan (4.92 billion U.S. dollars).

(Xinhua News Agency September 17, 2009)