B shares worried over planned new offerings
( 2001-12-21 10:54 ) (1 )

China's hard-currency B shares ended down on Thursday, depressed by an A-share slide due to deepening concerns over market liquidity as domestic initial public offerings continue to land on the already sluggish markets.

The Shanghai B-share index fell 1.02 per cent to 167.892 points as turnover contracted nearly 30 per cent to US$49.46 million.

The Shenzhen slipped 2.07 per cent to 261.40 on still slow turnover of HK$189.16 million (US$24 million), although that was up 23 per cent from Wednesday.

B shares are open to foreign and Chinese investors.

Six companies have launched or are scheduled to launch domestic A-share offerings this month. Brokers said they expected more next week, despite tightening market liquidity as institutional investors close their books for the year.

Sentiment was also burdened by expectations that the government may soon resume the selldown of its massive State holdings in listed firms after suspending a controversial pilot scheme in October.

"Investor confidence is already shaky because the markets have been getting weaker in tight liquidity around the end of the year," said analyst Julia Zhu of Everbright Securities.

Domestic A shares, off limits to foreign investors, closed down more than 2 per cent as the government's pledge to sell its stocks in a market-friendly way failed to ease growing investor worries about liquidity.

Zhou Xiaochuan, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said regulators would work out a programme to sell State shares in a way that would minimize market shocks, State media reported.

"Investors are now looking more at the liquidity issue even though many people expect the new selldown scheme to be better tailored for the market," Zhu said.

Brokers said they expected the A and B shares indices to head further south for the rest of the month, seeing little buying interest until early next year.

"We might need to wait till next month for a fairly decent market rally when new funds are expected to join the markets," said Beijing Securities analyst Feng Yucheng.

Shenzhen Textile was one of the biggest B-share fallers on the southern bourse, down 3.18 per cent at HK$8.22 (US$1.05).

The Shenzhen-based Securities Times quoted a senior trade official on Thursday as saying China's textile sector would still face pressure in the first few years after entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO) China joined the world trade body on December 11.

Zhang Li, vice-director of the economic performance unit of the State Economic and Trade Commission, said the markets had been overly optimistic about the prospects for Chinese textiles.

Zhang said even though some countries would phase out their import quotas on Chinese garments, the weighting of these garments in Chinese textile exports was relatively low.

The Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges said on Thursday they would require listed companies to disclose in their 2001 results what impact China's WTO membership will have on their business.

Brokers said the new requirement would help curb blind speculation in so-called WTO plays, such as garment makers and port operators, which have soared on anticipated benefits from more trade following China's WTO accession.

Investors had gobbled up WTO-related firms, ignoring such issues as product competitiveness.