The Hang Seng Index rose 0.6 per cent to 18,414.13 as of 10.10am local time, on the back of a two-day, 1.4 per cent drop. The Hang Seng Tech Index gained 1.3 per cent and the Shanghai Composite Index added 0.5 per cent.
China Resources Land added 2.1 per cent to HK$29.75 and its peer Longfor Group Holdings advanced 1.6 per cent to HK$11.68 after the city of Hangzhou removed all the restrictions on home purchases. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp rallied 4 per cent to HK$15.92 ahead of the release of its first-quarter results.
“There are growing expectations about policy support and that has apparently lifted market sentiment,” said An Qingliang, an analyst at Guorong Securities. “More follow-up measures will be implemented at a faster pace going forward to resolve the crisis on the property market and defuse the risk. These steps will help reinforced expectations about a pickup in the economy.”
Hangzhou, where e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding is based, is the latest major city in China to ease curbs on home purchase. Last month, the southwest city of Chengdu also said that it would no longer review qualifications on homebuyers and support the funding needs from developers.
Everbright Securities said nearly 60 cities had cancelled the mortgage rates floor up to end-April.
“We expect the trend to extend before new home sales and prices begin to recover, which must be supported by faster property policy easing at upper-tier cities,” the report said but added that the firms’ analysts did not expect a full and quick recovery, but a modest and gradual one nationally “due to extreme bifurcation between large tier cities in coastal areas recovering much more quickly than lower tier inland cities beset by high inventories”.
Shenzhen, Wuhan latest Chinese cities to ease housing market restrictions
Shenzhen, Wuhan latest Chinese cities to ease housing market restrictions
Traders will also be keeping a close watch on the data on China’s foreign trade in April due later Thursday. Exports probably increased 1.3 per cent from a year earlier, while imports rose 4.7 per cent, according to the consensus projection by the economists tracked by Bloomberg. Both imports and exports dropped in the previous month.
Elsewhere, Omat Advanced Materia, which makes materials for semiconductor displays and touch screens, surged 152 per cent to 24.19 yuan on the first day of trading in Shanghai.
Other major Asian markets were mixed. Japan’s Nikkei 225 climbed 0.2 per cent, while South Korea’s Kospi retreated 0.4 per cent and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.8 per cent.