Shanghai's three asset and technology exchanges could be merged to form a national trading floor under a proposal by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (Sasac).
However, the exchanges are opposing the merger.
For the past seven years, the Shanghai Asset & Equity Exchange (SAEE), Shanghai Technology Asset Exchange and Shanghai Technology Exchange have played a key role in China's economy, providing a forum to buy and sell assets.
After visiting the SAEE in June, Sasac director Li Rongrong said China should have a national trading floor and Shanghai should serve as an experiment for it.
The commission then came up with a proposal to merge the three exchanges, to be called the Shanghai Joint Asset Exchange, which would trade state, private and foreign-owned assets.
As of the end of last year, turnover on the three exchanges was a cumulative 300 billion yuan (HK$278.7 billion), accounting for half of all assets traded in the country. In the first nine months of this year, the SAEE, which mainly trades state assets, had a turnover of 109.94 billion yuan, an increase of 9.7 per cent over the same period last year.
None of the three exchanges is keen on merger.