Shenzhen Topraysolar Co. launched Wednesday the retail share offering of its US$60 million stock market listing, seeking to become the first domestic specialist maker of solar power cells to list domestically.

A number of bigger domestic solar energy firms, such as SunTech Power and Yingli Green Energy, have listed their shares on the stock market in the United States over the past several years.

But Topraysolar hopes to take advantage of increased interest in clean energy shares among domestic investors.

The company said it had priced its offering on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange of up to 40 million A shares, or 25 percent of its expanded capital, at 10.79 yuan per share, meaning it could raise as much as 432 million yuan (US$60 million).

Institutional subscriptions for the offer, managed by Guosen Securities, were taken last week and the issue is expected to draw strong demand despite a plunge of China's stock market over the past four months.

In late December, shares in Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co., China's biggest maker of wind power generation equipment, far exceeded investor expectations by soaring 264 percent from their issue price in their Shenzhen market debut.

Goldwind's shares have been relatively immune to the overall market's slide, closing at 145.15 yuan Wednesday compared to their 131.00 yuan finish on the day of their debut, and analysts' forecasts before the listing of a range of 90-100 yuan.

"Topraysolar's IPO will be a great attraction because of the concept of new energy and because investors may seek safety in the primary market amid the weakness of the secondary market," said analyst Cao Xuefeng at West China Securities.

Editor: Yan