China Stocks Flat; Sinopec Net Up 6.7%

Chandrasekhar Atreya
23 Aug, 2010
New York City

Stocks in China dropped marginally after trading higher in the morning. India gives clearance to two Chinese telecom companies to supply equipment. Sinopec, the largest refiner said first half net profit increased 6.7%. Everbright Securities plan to sell 12% stake in its asset management venture.

[R]5:00 PM Hong Kong, China – Stocks in China dropped marginally after trading higher in the morning. India gives clearance to two Chinese telecom companies to supply equipment. Sinopec, the largest refiner said first half net profit increased 6.7%. Everbright Securities plan to sell 12% stake in its asset management joint venture.[/R]

China stocks dropped after gaining in the morning to close marginally lower. Stocks in Hong Kong turned negative reversing an opening gain in the benchmark after resource shares pushed lower on some weakness in commodities.

The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong dropped 0.44% to 92.81 to close at 20,889.01. The CSI 300 Index in China fell as little as 0.07% or 2.14 to close at 2,896.19.

India allowed two telecom firms to buy equipment from Huawei and ZTE after the Chinese firms agreed to New Delhi’s tighter rules to address security concerns, sources said yesterday.

Earlier in the year, India barred some local mobile phone operators from placing orders with Huawei and ZTE on security concerns.

Sinopec, China’s top refiner said Saturday its net profit in the first half rose 6.7% to 35.46 billion yuan from a year earlier.

In a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Chairman Su Sulin said Sinopec’s turnover and other operating revenues amounted to 936.5 billion yuan and operating profit was 49.8 billion yuan which were 75.4% and 7.8% higher than a year before respectively.

Everbright Securities Co plans to sell a 12% stake in its fund management joint venture to raise 330 million yuan, the brokerage firm said Friday on the Shanghai United Assets and Equity Exchange.

The Shanghai-based brokerage firm now holds 67% of Everbright Pramerica Fund Management Co, according to the document on the Web site of the over-the-counter equity bourse.

Shanghai port’s container turnover in July jumped 19.8% from a year ago to 2.57 TEUs (Twenty Foot Equivalents), port authorities said Friday. Yangshan Deep-water Port handled a total of 891,600 TEUs, a 25.9% surge from a year earlier.

Cargo throughput of the city’s ports also rose 9% to 35.18 million tons as economic recovery pushed up global trade volumes.

The number of mainland Chinese companies that floated shares on global markets in July rose to 36 from 34 in June, an industry report said Friday. The companies netted a total of $22.92 billion, rising 355.2% from a month earlier and hitting a monthly record high so far this year, Zero2IPO Research Center said in a report.

Twenty five of the 36 companies raised $11.83 billion from the mainland market.

China government will possibly by the year end amend a law to allow foreign tour operators to cater to Chinese traveling abroad, Shao Qiwei, Chairman of China’s National Tourism Administration told his Japanese counterpart, Seiji Maehara Saturday. Maehara, Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism is in China to attend a meeting of tourism ministers from Japan, China, and South Korea in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.

At present only Chinese travel agencies are allowed to serve Chinese travelers.

Japan-based Maeda Corp secured its first railway construction order in Hong Kong to build a tunnel for a rail connection between Hong Kong and Guangzhou by May 2015.

China’s imports of iron ore from India dropped for a second straight month in July falling 21% to 6,547 tons with heavy monsoons disrupting transport, customs data showed Monday.

Hong Kong’s overall consumer prices rose 1.3% in July over the same month last year, down from 2.8% rise in June, its Census & Statistics Department said yesterday. Netting the government’s one-time relief measures, the annual rate of increase in the composite Consumer Price Index was 1.9%, mainly due to increases in the prices of food, excluding meals bought away from home and private housing rentals.

Annual price increase in July for electricity, gas and water climbed 62.8% in the composite CPI as households used up the full amount of the government’s electricity charge subsidy.