With a total of 40 Chinese companies now listed on the U.S. Nasdaq exchange, representatives of the companies met with Nasdaq CEO Robert Greifeld in Beijing on Tuesday to celebrate.

"In organizing this little ceremony, Nasdaq is clearly hunting for more Chinese companies," said Zhang Zhimin, a senior analyst with Securities Research.

Greifeld visited China in 2005 to meet with senior officials of the companies currently listed, those seeking listing on Nasdaq and with officials from bodies involved in the Chinese capital markets.

Nine Chinese companies listed on Nasdaq in 2006 following Greifeld's vist and six more have listed in the past two months.

"China is our fastest-growing market outside the United States. We are optimistic about the number of Chinese companies that can list on Nasdaq," said Xu Guangxun, chief representative of Nasdaq in China.

"Just look at the number of IPOs in China," Zhang commented.

The capital raised from initial public offerings (IPO) in China topped 62 billion U.S. dollars last year, exceeding the 48 billion U.S. dollars raised in the United States for the first time, according to an earlier forecast by Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC).

It predicted the IPOs would top 37 million on the mainland markets and 20 billion dollars in Hong Kong in 2007.

Since Qiao Xing Universal Telephone Inc.'s debut in 1999, 40 Chinese companies valued at 28 billion US dollars, including the major Chinese web portals Sina, Sohu and Baidu, have listed on Nasdaq.

Nasdaq, the largest electronic screen-based equity securities market in the United States, lists about 3,200 companies, including Microsoft, Dell and Yahoo. The market value of these companies exceeds 4,000 billion U.S. dollars.