''CHINA'S GIANT MEITUAN"

CHINESE online services giant Meituan Dianping filed for an initial public offering in Hong Kong on Monday, in what could become one of the biggest IPOs of the year.

The food delivery and restaurant review service is the latest Chinese ''unicorn'' - a tech startup valued at least $1 billion - to seek a listing to raise billions in funds.

The file did not disclose which day it will list or the amount of cash it aims to raise, But  Bloomberg Nres reported that firm was said to have been targeting $6 billion fundraising at a valuation of about $60 billion.

The scale would be around the same level as as  smartphone maker  Xiamomi's  announced goal of $6.1 billion, which Bloomberg said would be the world's biggest IPO for . Xiaomi is expected to list on July 9.

Groupon-like website was founded by CEO Wand Xing in 2010 andd merged with  comment-rating platform Dianping Holdings into a $15 billion provider of online services in 2015.

The pair are leading enterprise in China's group-buying market and were backed by Internet giants  Alibaba and its rival Tencent, respectively.

The combined company   Meituan-Dianping, now mainly backed by Tencent, offers a variety of services including  group-buying , food ordering and delivery, restaurant and movie ticket booking.

It also launched ride hailing services earlier this year trying to compete with industry leader  Didi Chuxing.

With revenue mainly generated by  commissions , Meituan said it had   310 million active users and  4.4 million active merchants  and its gross transaction volume reached 35.5 billion yuan  ($5.5 billion} in 2017.

But it reported a  19 billion yuan loss for last year, up from the around  six billion  yuan loss in 2016.

The IPO comes after Hong Kong allowed firms with dual voting to list in former British colony. [Agencies].