China stocks up 2.1 pct, industrial metals surge

China's stock market opened the New Year on Monday by rising strongly, with industrial metal producers leading the gains on hopes they would benefit from the government's infrastructure building plans.

The Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC, which tumbled 65 percent last year, making China the world's worst-performing major stock market, ended the morning up 2.14 percent at 1,859.845 points. A full-day rise would end eight straight days of losses.

Gaining Shanghai A shares overwhelmed losers by 853 to 76. Turnover in Shanghai A shares was modest at 23.5 billion yuan ($3.4 billion), but up from 15.2 billion yuan last Wednesday morning, before New Year holidays.

Baoshan Iron & Steel (600019.SS: Quote, Profile, Research) climbed 4.53 percent to 4.85 yuan, while Aluminium Corp of China (601600.SS: Quote, Profile, Research) gained 4.72 percent to 6.44 yuan.

The China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said on Sunday that the official purchasing managers' index (PMI) rose to 41.2 in December from a record low of 38.8 hit in November.

SICHUAN SHARES

Shares related to Sichuan province surged on Monday on talk that reconstruction after last May's devastating earthquake in the area would pick up speed. Sichuan Road (600039.SS: Quote, Profile, Research) rose 6.75 percent to 5.85 yuann while Chongqing Steel (601005.SS: Quote, Profile, Research) gained its 10 percent daily limit to 3.80 yuan.

Yunnan Tin 000960.SZ climbed 7.10 percent to 10.11 yuan after saying the government of Yunnan province had listed it as a key resource supplier. A company executive told Reuters last week that it had proposed to sell 30,000 tonnes of tin ingots to the province as base metal reserves.

Copyright and Exemption Declaration :¢ÙAll articles, pictures and videos that are marked with "China Aluminum Network" on this website are copyright and belong to China Aluminium Network (www.alu.com.cn). When transshipment, any media, website or individual must list the source from "China Aluminium Network (www.alu.com.cn)". We seek legal actions against anyone that disobey this. ¢ÚArticles that marked as copy from others are for transferring more information to readers, do not represent or endorse their opinions or accuracy and reliability. When other media, website or individuals copy from our website, must keep the source. Anyone that changes the articles' sources will hold the responsibilities for copyright and law problems. We also seek legal actions against anyone that disobey this. ¢ÛIf any articles copied by our website concern the copyright and other problems, please contact us within one week.