Stocks in China Decline, Manufacturing Expands

Chandrasekhar Atreya
01 Sep, 2010
New York City

Stocks in China fell while those in Hong Kong rallied. New home sales are set to begin in September, the traditional high season for purchases. First-half income of mainland listed companies jump 41%.

[R]5:00 PM Hong Kong, China – Stocks in China fell while those in Hong Kong rallied. New home sales are set to begin in September, the traditional high season for purchases. First-half income of mainland listed companies jump 41%.[/R]

The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong increased 0.19% or 43.12 to close at 20,579.61. The CSI 300 Index in China lost 0.7% or 19.15 to close at 2,884.04.

Purchasing Manager’s Index tracked by China for August bounced back from a 17-month low in July as current strong government investment offset moves by Beijing to cool the country’s property bubble.

The Purchasing Manager’s Index rose to 51.7 in August from 51.2 in July, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, which issues the data with the National Bureau of Statistics, said in a statement Wednesday.

Of the index’s 11 categories, six rose and five fell in August compared to July. Among the key sub-indexes, new export orders, new orders, and input prices rose, while imports and employment fell, according to the data.

Hong Kong government sold a residential property Tuesday for HK$1.29 billion in an auction, beating estimates and worries that the luxury residential market is softening.

Kerry Properties Ltd, controlled by the family of Malaysian tycoon Robert Kuok, won the bidding for the land in the Kowloon Tong district. The plot sold a record square foot price for the Kowloon Peninsula of HK$16,587, according to real estate broker Midland Holdings Ltd.

New homes in 48 projects, most of them located in Shanghai city and some in the neighboring areas, are due to be released this month as the traditional high season for home purchases begins in China.

Some 60% of the new supply, comprising one villa development and 47 apartment projects, are in Songjiang, Jiading, and Baoshan districts as well as in Pudong New Rea. Small and medium-sized apartments not larger than 970 square feet comprise 42% of the new homes, according to research released Tuesday by a leading real estate data portal Soufun.com.

China will continue to face pressure on its environment over the next 15 years as its economy continues to grow, according to an environment ministry official.

Though leaders in the nation have said that economic expansion should not be done at the expense of excess consumption of resources which may hurt the environment, the situation takes a turn for the worse when it comes to local governments and individual companies, said Yang Chaofei, the chief of the policy and regulation department under the ministry of Environment Protection.

Total income of 1,947 companies listed on the mainland jumped 41.17% in the first half of the year with about 390 firms looking to grow profit in the next two quarters also according to their preliminary reports.

Companies earned a net of 785 billion yuan in the first six months of the year with revenues growing 42.23% to 7.9 trillion yuan, for 46% of the nation’s GDP, data compiled by the Shanghai Securities News showed.

Taobao said it launched an online employment platform, targeting the booming e-commerce industry in China.

The nation’s largest online shopping platform expects to have around 100,000 job listings by the end of this year, compared with 2,600 now.

The total premiums of Hong Kong’s insurance industry grew 14.5% to HK$16.6 billion in the first half of this year, the office of the Commissioner of Insurance said Tuesday.

Net premiums rose 11.8% to HK$11.7 billion while overall underwriting profit stood at HKI$1.3 billion.