TOKYO/HONG KONG/SHANGHAI/SYDNEY (dpa-AFX) – The prospect of continued restrictive corona policy in China put pressure on Asia’s most important stock markets at the start of the week. After a speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the party congress, investors also priced in further tensions between China and the USA. Overall, share prices were only in China itself.
“As expected, Xi Jinping has committed to his zero-Covid policy – and little indicates an imminent change of course,” wrote the experts at Commerzbank. The same applies to international relations, especially with the USA, commented the experts at Deutsche Bank. China’s President gave a defiant speech and warned against interference in Taiwan.
In the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the leading index Hang Seng lost 0.3 percent to 16,540.50 points against this background. Weak tech stocks in particular continued their downward trend of the past week. The Chinese CSI 300 index (CSI 300) with the 300 most important companies on the mainland stock exchanges turned slightly positive after initial losses and was last listed 0.1 percent higher at 3846.73 points.
In Tokyo, shares gave back some of their gains from Friday: The Japanese Nikkei 225 closed 1.2 percent lower at 26,775.79 points.
The Australian leading index S&P ASX 200 slipped by 1.4 percent to 6664.40 points. Comments on China’s zero-Covid strategy put mining stocks there under pressure./jcf/tih/mis