Nine firms debut on China's "new third board"

BEIJING, March 25 (Xinhua) -- China's National Equities Exchange and Quotation (NEEQ), also known as the "new third board," saw the debut of nine new small and medium-sized enterprises last week.

The newcomers brought the total number of companies on the board to 11,571, according to the NEEQ data.

From March 19 to 23, turnover on the board stood at 1.5 billion yuan (about 237 million U.S. dollars), down 5.86 percent from the previous week.

NEEQ was launched in early 2013 to supplement the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges in serving small and medium-sized enterprises. It is seen as an easy financing channel for small businesses, with low costs and simple listing procedures.