THE bourse behemoth that is China Citic Bank Corp is showing no signs of slowing down - in fact, it has gone up a gear.

It has already held China's biggest initial public offering this year, and has now increased the sale by 15 percent to US$5.95 billion after individual investors in Hong Kong ordered an incredible 230 times the number of shares available to them, Bloomberg reported yesterday.

The lender, a unit of China's biggest state-run investment company Citic Group, raised another HK$4.29 billion (US$549 million) selling shares in Hong Kong, it said in a statement to the city's stock exchange yesterday.

Citic Bank earlier raised US$5.4 billion selling stock in Hong Kong and Shanghai. The Shanghai-traded shares almost doubled in price on the first day of trading. But it is not just Citic Bank that is booming - it is the whole country.

Esteemed financial expert Kitty Chan summed it up succinctly when she said: "China is still the big focus for global investors. Where else would the money go, with the economic growth and renminbi?"

Chan is a director with Cash Asset Management Ltd in Hong Kong.

Chinese companies have raised US$30.8 billion selling shares this year, excluding mutual-fund launches and rights offerings, with investors clamoring for stock offerings amid first-day gains that are all but guaranteed.

Bank of Communications Ltd drew US$188 billion of orders for its Shanghai share sale, greater than the market value of JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The benchmark CSI 300 Index has surged 74 percent this year as China's economic growth increased the appeal of Chinese equities.