TMTPOST -- Chinese shares listed at home and abroad climbed on Thursday as China’s top leadership vowed to introduce more economic stimulus for the next year.
Credit：Xinhua News Agency
The mainland China's SSE Composite Index closed 0.8% higher and the ChiNext index, which tracks stocks traded on the Nasdaq-style subsidiary of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, gained nearly 1.4% on Thursday. The blue chip CSI 300 index of onshore stocks finished 1% higher and Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index up 1.2%.
The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index, which tracks 65 China-exposed U.S.-listed companies, rose as much as 1% and erked out a nearly 0.2% gain as of close on Thursday, snapping its two-day losses. The index outperformed the U.S. stock market as the benchmark S&P 500 dropped more than 0.5%. The American depositary receipts (ADRs) of Chinese retailer MINISO Group gained almost 5.5%. Temu parent PDD rose 1.2% and its e-commerce rival Alibaba up nearly 0.3%. Search engine giant Baidu added around 1.1%.
Exchange-trade funds (ETFs) tracking the investment in Chinese equities mixed. The KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF edged up 0.1% while the Invesco China Technology ETF down 0.2%.
Earlier Thursday, the annual Central Economic Work Conference was held in Beijing, chaired by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, Chinese president, laid out the policymakers’ focuses on economy for the upcoming 2025 year.
More proactive and impactful macro policies should be implemented to sustain the upward trend of the economy, so as to fulfill the goals and tasks in the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) with high quality and lay a solid foundation for a good start to the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030), the state news agency Xinhua cited the meeting.
For next year, the meeting emphasized the need to maintain steady economic growth, keep employment and prices generally stable, ensure a basic equilibrium in the balance of payments, and increase residents' income in step with economic growth.
The Chinese government should adopt a more proactive fiscal policy and set a higher deficit-to-GDP ratio, and it should ensure that its fiscal policy is continuously forceful and more impactful, according to the meeting. It pledged to increase the issuance of ultra-long special treasury bonds and local government special-purpose bonds, and optimize the structure of fiscal expenditure.
A moderately loose monetary policy should be implemented, with reductions in the reserve requirement ratio and interest rates at an appropriate timing to ensure ample liquidity, according to the meeting. It called for better coordination between fiscal, monetary, employment, industrial, regional, trade, environmental and regulatory policies and the country's reform and opening up measures.
Outlining a number of key tasks for 2025, the meeting urged efforts to vigorously boost consumption, improve investment efficiency, and expand domestic demand on all fronts. A special campaign dedicated to stimulating consumption should be implemented, and efforts should be made to increase the incomes and alleviate the burdens of low- and middle-income groups, the meeting noted.
The large-scale equipment upgrades and consumer goods trade-in programs should be promoted with greater intensity and scope, and active efforts should be made to develop debut economy, ice and snow economy and silver economy, according to the meeting.It called for stronger support for implementing major national strategies and building security capacity in key areas, and appropriately increased investment from the central government budget.
China should take steps to make scientific and technological innovation drive the development of new quality productive forces and build a modernized industrial system, the meeting said. said China should expand its high-standard opening up and keep foreign trade and foreign investment stable. Efforts should also be made to expand the pilot programs in opening up such fields as telecom, healthcare and education, according to the meeting.
The meeting demanded effectively preventing and mitigating risks in key areas to ensure that no systemic risks occur.Efforts should be continuously ratcheted up to further reverse the downturn of and stabilize the real estate market, the meeting said, calling for reasonably controlling the supply of newly added real estate land, and promoting the establishment of a new model for real estate development.
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