South Korea’s bourse operator said Friday it has received applications from 21 firms wishing to be listed on the new Korea New Exchange market catering to smaller industry players.

The Korea Exchange said 10 brokerage houses, which were selected as authorized supervisors in March to evaluate and supervise firms to be listed on the envisioned market, handed in the list of candidates on Friday.

Slated to open on July 1, the KONEX market aims to foster growth of small and mid-sized firms, and add to the KRX’s business portfolio, which currently operates the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index and the tech-heavy KOSDAQ market.

Firms qualified to be listed on the KONEX market must either have equity capital above 500 million won ($448,000), annual sales beyond 1 billion won, or a net profit of 300 million won.

IBK Investment & Securities Co. handed in the largest number of four companies, trailed by KB Investment & Securities Co. and Shinhan Investment Corp. with three candidates each.

The KRX plans to review the first list of firms over the next two weeks. The bourse operator plans to attract 50 firms with a combined market capitalization of 1.5 trillion won ($1.34 billion) on the new bourse by the end of this year. (Yonhap News)