Thirty-three firms raised US$7.31 billion in Shanghai in the first quarter. New York-based Nasdaq took second place, with 17 firms raising US$5.13 billion. (Reuters)

Talking point: This is the first time in almost three years Shanghai has taken the top spot in global IPO rankings. In November 2019, Beijing rolled out new incentives for firms to raise money domestically. These included relaxing profitability requirements and lowering the market cap threshold for internationally incorporated Chinese companies from 200 billion yuan to 100 billion yuan. Shanghai’s Star board for technology startups, which started trading in July, is also fuelling the increase. China’s markets overall have done relatively better than those in the U.S., with the country’s benchmark CSI 300 dropping 9.4 per cent for the year, as of Friday. The S&P 500 fell 21 per cent and Europe’s Stoxx 600 dropped 25 per cent over the same period.