BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The composite index of Shanghai Stock Exchange bounced up 3.13 points to close at 1,601.15 points after a day of fluctuations on Monday, the first day of trading since the central bank announced a rise in interest rates.

On Friday the central bank hiked the one-year benchmark interest rate 0.27 of a percentage point. The news brought down the composite index by 1.68 percent to open at 1,565.457 points on Monday morning trading.

Interest rates stand at 2.52 percent on one-year deposits and 6.12 percent on the one-year loan rate, as set by the People's Bank of China (PBOC), or the central bank.

The central bank raised the loan rates by the same margin in late April, but did not change the deposit rates. The rise may have sparked fears of insufficient capital available for stock market players.

A flurry of initial public offerings (IPOs) have investors concerned that capital could dry up and send the market tumbling.

On Monday, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) started reviewing the IPO plans of Dalian Zhangdao Fishery Group, Zhejiang Dongliang New Material and Zhejiang Jiakang Electronics. The CSRC had not conducted IPO reviews for three weeks.

"Although the three are all small capitalizations, some investors may fear an IPO glut could cause liquidity pressure," Zhang Yidong, an analyst at Industrial Securities, said.

In June and July, after 10 companies, including the state-owned Bank of China and the Daqin Railway, presented their IPOs on the mainland, the total market value of shares already listed on Chinese stock markets slumped by more than 400 billion yuan (50 billion U.S. dollars).

Most experts attending a recent high-level forum on China's capital market, however, expressed confidence in the Chinese stockmarket in the long run, expecting the A-share market to rebound in the fourth quarter after the recent short-term adjustment, with more investment opportunities to appear.

Plenty of stock investment opportunities still exist in fields of energy, resources, environmental protection, information technology, agriculture, space and aviation, Wang Lizhuang, supervisor of the research and development center under Asian Wisdom, an investment consulting company, said at the forum.

The Chinese stock market would probably enter another bullish stage at the end of this year, Wang said.

On Monday, China Petro-Chemical (Sinopec), a blue-chip firm with the second largest market value on the Chinese mainland, announced it had kicked off its split share structure reform, marking the last phase of the reform that began in April last year.

The split share structure, referring to the existence of both publicly-owned tradable shares and a large volume of state-owned non-tradable shares, was regarded as a major factor leading to the last four years of bearish activity on the market.

To make all their shares tradable, listed companies undergoing reform have to offer additional shares or funds to private investors as compensation for potential losses in the value of their portfolios when the publicly-owned shares hit the market.

The reform has been viewed by the regulator and investors as vital for the capital market to function as an open and fair market for both majority and minority public shareholders.

After four years of bearish activity, the Chinese stock market rebounded by over 30 percent with improved investor confidence over the past 12 months, thanks to the sweeping share reform and other institutional changes. Enditem