HONG KONG: Hong Kong shares tracked Asian markets lower on Thursday, as investors harbour very little hope that the Sino-US trade talks will lead to a breakthrough.
The Hang Seng index fell 1.3 percent to 30,313.37, while the China Enterprises Index lost 1.4 percent to 12,018.86.
A US trade delegation arrived in Beijing on Thursday for key talks over tariffs.
A breakthrough deal to fundamentally change China's economic policies is viewed as highly unlikely during the two-day visit, though a package of short-term Chinese measures could delay a US decision to impose tariffs on around $50 billion worth of Chinese exports.
The sub-index of the Hang Seng tracking energy shares dipped 1.2 percent while the IT sector dipped 1.61 percent, the financial sector was 1.2 percent lower and property index dipped 1.82 percent.
The top gainer on Hang Seng was MTR Corp Ltd up 1.03 percent, while the biggest loser was China Resources Land Ltd which was down 4.17 percent.
Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index was weaker by 0.52 percent while Japan's Nikkei index closed down 0.16 percent .
The yuan was quoted at 6.3566 per US dollar at 08:12 GMT, 0.1 percent firmer than the previous close of 6.363.
As of the previous trading session, the Hang Seng index was up 2.69 percent this year, while China's H-share index was up 4.1 percent. As of the previous close, the Hang Seng has declined 0.27 percent this month.
The top gainers among H-shares were Air China Ltd up 2.53 percent, followed by CRRC Corp Ltd gaining 1.6 percent and Huaneng Power International Inc up by 0.95 percent.
The three biggest H-shares percentage decliners were Guangzhou Automobile Group Co Ltd which was down 5.8 percent, China Resources Land Ltd which fell 4.2 percent and ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance Co Ltd that lost 4.0 percent.
About 1.79 billion Hang Seng index shares were traded, roughly 102.4 percent of the market's 30-day moving average of 1.75 billion shares. The volume traded in the previous trading session was 1.69 billion.
At close, China's A-shares were trading at a premium of 22.37 percent over the Hong Kong-listed H-shares.
The price-to-earnings ratio of the Hang Seng index was 12.47 as of the last full trading day while the dividend yield was 3.2 percent.
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