Chinese shares closed at their highest in five-and-a-half years on Monday, fuelled by expectations of further government stimulus after Premier Li Keqiang said Beijing had plenty of scope to adjust policies to boost the world’s second-largest economy.
Li told a news conference in Beijing on Sunday that China’s room for policy manoeuvre is “relatively big’’, and could choose from “comparatively many’’ policy tools.
He also assured his audience that policymakers would prop up the economy if growth was at risk of breaching a “lower limit’’, or hurt employment and income gains.
The CSI300 index of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen rose 2.4 per cent to 3,705.67, while the Shanghai Composite Index gained 2.3 per cent to 3,449.30 points.
Both indexes reached their highest level since August 2009, while trading volume in mainland shares expanded to the highest level in two months.
Among the most active stocks in Shanghai were Bank of China , up 0.7 per cent at 4.18 yuan; Agricultural Bank of China, up 0.9 per cent at 3.35 yuan and Baotou Steel , up 3.6 per cent at 6.03 yuan.
In Shenzhen, BOE Technology, up 2.6 percent at 3.22 yuan; TCL Corp, up 2.0 per cent at 5.21 yuan; and Suning Appliance, up 5.4 per cent at 11.94 yuan, were among the most actively traded.