The combined market value of China's stock market expanded by 4.16 percent this week after the share prices jumped sharply on Friday.

The total capitalization of all the firms listed on the nation's Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges hit 17.9 trillion yuan (2.4 trillion U.S. dollars), according to statistics from th etwo exchanges.

Meanwhile, the value of all the tradable shares on the two bourses climbed to 5.9 trillion yuan (779.3 billion U.S. dollars),4.2 percent higher from the previous week.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index jumped 3.73 percent to 4,058.85 points on Friday, the highest closing after hitting 4,078.6 points on June 27. The Shenzhen Component Index on the country's smaller Shenzhen Stock Exchange gained 4.9 percent to 13,417.96 points.

The sharp increase came despite initial concerns of further economic tightening measures after the release of strong economic data on Thursday.

China's economy expanded 11.9 percent in the second quarter of this year, lifting the growth in the first half year to 11.5 percent. The consumer price index accelerated to the 32-month-highof 4.4 percent in June, well above the government's target of 3 percent for 2007.

The two indices fell sharply on Monday before rebounding on Tuesday and Wednesday and slumping slightly on Thursday.

The key Shanghai index increased 3.72 percent this week while the Shenzhen Component Index gained 4.69 percent.

After the stock markets closed on Friday, China announced to raise the benchmark one-year lending and deposit rate by 0.27 percentage point as of Saturday and to slash the tax on interest income from 20 percent to 5 percent as of Aug. 15.

Analysts said the tightening measures would have limited impact on the equity markets.

Teng Yin, an analyst at Everbright Securities, said the rosy corporate profit prospects and excess liquidity from the issuance of new mutual funds would prompt the market to new high in volatility.

A total of 678 publicly traded firms announced their interim earnings forecasts by Wednesday. The combined net income of 666, excluding 12 newly-listed ones, would likely to soar by 80 percent to 138.7 billion yuan (18.3 billion U.S. dollars).

Qiu Yanying, an analyst with Shanghai Tianxiang Investment Consulting, said the interest rate hike and interest income tax cut would not affect the market in the short term as they were in expectation and the market has earlier digested their impact.