Chinese Consul General in New York Peng Keyu (3rd R) and Senior Vice President of NASDAQ OMX Robert H. McCooey,Jr. (2nd R) wave hands during the opening bell ceremony in celebration of the Chinese Lunar New Year at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, the United States, Feb. 3, 2011. [Xinhua/Shen Hong]

NASDAQ hosted an opening ceremony to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year on Thursday.

Peng Keyu, consul general of the Chinese Consulate General in New York, was invited to ring the opening bell at the ceremony.

In his speech, Peng extended sincere wishes of Chinese New Year to the Chinese community and all Americans.

"NASDAQ is well known and respected in China, not only for its economic and financial clout, but also for its endeavor to promote inter-cultural understanding and people to people exchanges," he said.

"I am very pleased to see that 170 Chinese companies are listed on NASDAQ and the number is growing day by day," Peng added.

Robert McCooey, senior vice president of New Listing and Capital Markets, who served as host of Thursday's ceremony, also gave his best wishes for the Chinese Lunar New Year.

"According to the Chinese tradition, the rabbit signifies the bright and full moon, representing human's wish for a life of good," he said, adding that China is "critical" to NASDAQ and Chinese companies' cooperation with NASDAQ has made "a tremendous achievement" in the past few years.

McCooey said he still saw the year 2011 continue to be "progressive."

"I think what we see is the pipeline will continues to go deeper of Chinese companies looking to access the US capital market," he told Xinhua.

NASDAQ-listed Chinese companies have grown from 70 to 170 in the past 3 years, and now have a total capitalization of $1.3 billion. Some companies like Baidu and Ctrip are part of NASDAQ 100 index, according to McCooey.