SHARES on China's fledgling stock markets rose sharply in the last two days, quelling fears of a slump, writes Conor O'Clery, from Beijing. On Monday and Tuesday almost every stock on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges declined in price by the maximum permitted 10 per cent. However, local investors have resumed buying, particularly hard-currency Class B shares, analysts said.
This followed a frustrating day on Tuesday when the security services monitored market sales and some investors were unable to place sell orders as prices plummeted. China's securities authorities have now flooded the volatile share markets with new 1977 issues to absorb excess funds which made trading highly speculative.
The 1997 issues will increase the number of shares on the two stock exchanges by almost a third.