Refinancing for light-asset, high R&D standards expanded to the Shenzhen Main Board

People’s Financial News, March 27 - On March 27, 2026, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange revised and implemented the “Guidelines for the Review of Stock Issuance and Listing Business of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange No. 8 - Standards for Identifying Light Assets and High R&D Investment (2026 Revision)” (hereinafter referred to as the “Guidelines”), expanding the applicability of the existing “light assets, high R&D investment” identification standards for the Growth Enterprise Market to the Main Board companies. After the revision, the relevant standards for the Main Board and the Growth Enterprise Market are completely aligned. Main Board companies that meet the standards can exceed the limit for refinancing to be used for R&D investment, further enhancing the flexibility of refinancing. The revised “Guidelines” consist of 12 articles. Among them, the identification standard for “light assets” for Main Board listed companies is that the proportion of physical assets to total assets does not exceed 20%; the identification standard for “high R&D investment” is that the average R&D investment in the last three years accounts for no less than 15% of operating income, or the cumulative R&D investment in the last three years is no less than 300 million yuan, and the average R&D investment in the last three years accounts for no less than 5% of operating income. At the same time, this revision makes adaptive adjustments to the previously published “high R&D investment” identification standard for the Growth Enterprise Market, further highlighting the “supporting excellence and supporting science” orientation. In the “high R&D investment” identification standard for the Growth Enterprise Market, the lower limit of the R&D investment ratio of “cumulative R&D investment in the last three years is no less than 300 million yuan and the average R&D investment in the last three years accounts for no less than 3% of operating income” is adjusted from 3% to 5%, which is higher than the median ratio of average R&D investment to operating income for listed companies in the Shenzhen and Shanghai markets over the last three years.