SHANGHAI: China stocks rose for a fourth straight session to close up on Monday, with Shanghai stocks at five-week highs, as the capital Beijing and financial hub of Shanghai eased stringent COVID-19 control measures.
The blue-chip CSI300 index ended 0.7% higher at 4,029.02, while the Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.6% to close at 3,149.06 points.
The Hang Seng index rose 2.1% to 21,123.93, while the China Enterprises Index gained 2.4% to 7,255.13 points.
Some residents in Beijing were allowed to return to work, while Shanghai inched closer towards lifting its two-month old COVID-19 lockdown from Wednesday, as the number of infections across China dropped.
On Sunday, Shanghai authorities said they will remove “unreasonable” conditions for businesses to resume work from Wednesday and announced 50 policy measures to support the economy.
“With the continuous implementation of work resumption plans, worries over growth are expected to be eased marginally,” said CICC in a note.
Also, “given the recent increase in macro policy support and the relatively loose macro liquidity conditions, we believe market valuation has bottomed for the year,” said Meng Lei, China Equity Strategist at UBS Securities.
“There could be more earnings downgrades in the period ahead and around the Q2 earnings season... opportunity will emerge once the current round of earnings downgrades are largely done.” Meng added.
Consumer staples and tourism led the gains, up 1.9% and 3%, respectively. Semiconductors and automobiles rose more than 1% each, while real estate developers lost 2%.
China’s securities regulator said it has agreed to include exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in stock connect schemes with Hong Kong.
Asian stocks also rose, as investors wagered on an eventual slowdown in US monetary tightening.
Tech giants listed in Hong Kong climbed nearly 4%, with food-delivery giant Meituan and e-commerce giant Alibaba soaring 6.8% and 4.3%, respectively.
Sentiment in the sector was improved as Alibaba and Baidu posted better-than-expected earnings last week, sending tech firms up 3.8% on Friday.