A leading Chinese government official said yesterday that state-owned companies would benefit more from listing first on overseas stock markets such as Hong Kong rather than on the mainland exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzhen.

Li Rongrong, chairman of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (Sasac), which manages the state's corporate assets, defended the policy of floating large companies overseas, saying that international exchanges had more rigorous corporate governance standards, which would improve the performance of state-owned groups.