Pink Sheets LLC, which runs a market for over-the-counter stocks, is selling a trading platform to Chinese firms enabling them to sell shares in the United States without having to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Using an exemption allowed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, overseas companies can sell securities in the US by providing basic information to the regulator, Bloomberg News reported.

Bank of New York Co and Roth Capital Partners are trying to persuade Chinese companies to list on Pink Sheets' International OTCQX market.

US investors are showing greater interest in Chinese equities, seeking to benefit from an economy that's expanded at least 10 percent in each of the last four years.

"A few hundred of our institutional clients are keen" on Chinese companies, compared with about 30 a year ago, Gordon McBean, Shanghai-based director of research at Roth Capital, said on Saturday. "The fact they are becoming public on the OTCQX probably means they got their eyes on going to Nasdaq," said Kevin Clark, who helps manage US$3.5 billion at Milwaukee-based Heartland Advisors Inc. "They're undiscovered. If you can buy them at strong fundamentals, you can get downside protection."

Clark, senior vice president of Heartland Advisors, was among the 30 US investors who have visited companies in China in the past week.

None of the 11 companies whose shares are traded on Pink Sheets' OTCQX market, or the 20 that have applied for a listing, are from China, Cromwell Coulson, the company's chief executive officer, said in an interview on Saturday in Hong Kong.

Pink Sheets started its OTCQX market in March, and Bank of New York is a principal American liaison for overseas companies that want to list on it, Coulson said.

The platform gives "companies the visibility and access to US investors, short of a US exchange listing," Coulson said.

The biggest company traded on OTCQX is the Mexican unit of Wal-Mart Stores Inc, while Citigroup Inc and UBS AG are two of Pink Sheets' market makers, he said.

Companies that avail of Pink Sheets' service save money by not incurring the legal costs of complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Coulson said.

Complying with the law cost companies US$2.92 million on average last year.

Business groups, such as the US Chamber of Commerce, have criticized Sarbanes-Oxley for stifling innovation by subjecting companies to burdensome regulations.

Congress passed Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002 after accounting frauds at Enron Corp and WorldCom Inc cost shareholders billions of dollars.

The provision of the 2002 law that has drawn the most criticism requires an outside auditor to verify a company has sufficient internal procedures in place to catch fraud and bookkeeping errors.