In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index added 1.4 per cent to 22,763.43 points, while the Hong Kong China Enterprises Index gained 2.1 per cent to 10,620.99. Seoul’s Kospi edged up 0.1 per cent to 2,022.28 while Sydney’s S&P ASX 200 fell 0.8 per cent to 5,237.00.
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But more than this announcement, it’s the signal from Beijing that provided promise to markets, as this overture is thought to be a sign of more stimulus to come down-the-road. China reported gross domestic product growth was in line with its target of 7% in both of the first two quarters of this year.
On Tuesday China said imports fell 17.7 percent year-on-year in September as the nation’s property sector stuttered, leading to a knock-on effect for the crucial construction industry.
The Huarong IPO secured commitments worth about $1.8 billion from around 12 to 13 cornerstone investors, the sources said. The Chinese government is now left with a market in the doldrums, the Journal report said.
Those factors overshadowed a bumper corporate merger deal, which saw the world’s largest brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev take over SABMiller in a cash and share package worth 68 billion pounds ($104.4 billion). Zinc was down 0.7% to $1,827.50 a ton.
Oil prices recorded their biggest fall in six weeks on Monday after a report that OPEC continued to boost crude production triggered a wave of profit-taking from last week’s 11-week high.
As the dollar wilted, commodity currencies recovered sharply, with the Australian dollar rising to a two-month high of $0.7382 on Monday.
The onshore Chinese yuan fell 0.3% in Asia trade after eight straight days of gains.
The narrowing gap between the onshore and offshore prices of the renminbi or yuan show that Beijing has achieved one of the goals of its latest round of foreign exchange reforms, which started on August. 11.
The central parity rate of the Chinese currency renminbi, or the yuan, strengthened 175 basis points to 6.3231 against the USA dollar on Tuesday, authorities said. The announcement over the weekend was a plan to expand a pilot program to boost banks’ lending abilities.
The yuan had kept rebounding since September 24 and hit its highest since the surprise devaluation on August 11 on Monday. The rise suggests that a few traders have regained their appetite for stocks.
The euro was up about 0.1% at $1.13720, consolidating recent gains, while the Japanese yen held within recent broad trading ranges carved against the greenback. Prices are down from a more than $1,163 reached late Monday in Asia, marking the highest since July.
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Jacky Wong, Vera Sprothen and Biman Mukherji contributed to this article.
