SHANGHAI - Chinese companies raised the most this decade in first-half initial public offerings as Huatai Securities Co and more than 170 other firms tapped the country's financial markets.

Companies raised 215.3 billion yuan ($31.8 billion) from IPOs, said Tong Daochi, the China Securities Regulatory Commission's director-general of international affairs, at a conference in Shanghai. The amount is the highest so far this century for China, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

China, home to the worst-performing benchmark Asian stock index, may be the world's biggest IPO market this year as companies are likely to raise 500 billion yuan in Shanghai and Shenzhen, PricewaterhouseCoopers said this month. The first-half tally doesn't include Agricultural Bank of China Ltd's $19.2 billion July sale in Shanghai and Hong Kong.