BEIJING -- Shanghai Stock Exchange's sci-tech innovation board, also known as the STAR market, has become increasingly appealing to foreign investors, data from the board shows.

So far, nearly 90 percent of the board's stocks that are under the STAR market connectivity mechanism have been included in MSCI, FTSE Russell and S&P Dow Jones, and the number keeps rising, statistics from the board showed.

Foreign institutions are snapping up stocks on the STAR market, as the international investors' position in the board took up nearly 5 percent of the total by the end of 2021.

The board's data also showed that international investors have a growing appetite for the new stock issuance. By the end of February, 98 foreign institutions had participated in the preliminary inquiry of the primary market of the STAR market, with 78 of them allocated shares.

Firms on the STAR market posted stellar performances, with revenue and net profit of the companies in the SSE STAR Market 50 Index rising 35 percent and 76 percent year on year in the first quarter of this year, respectively.