HONG KONG: Hong Kong stocks pared their very modest gains on Wednesday as investors digested news that China’s first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) expanded at its slowest pace in six years.
The Hang Seng Index was 79.62 points or 0.29 per cent up at 27,641.11, having opened 0.41 per cent higher to 27, 6725.26. It fell 1.6 per cent on Tuesday, breaking an eight-session winning steak in a rally that lifted stocks to their highest in seven years.
China’s GDP grew 7 per cent in the first three months this year from the same period a year earlier, the country’s statistics bureau said on Wednesday, making it the weakest quarterly expansion since the first quarter of 2009.
The slowdown underlined the structural challenges ahead after a sharp fall in the country’s March exports and imports.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index was up 0.48 per cent, while Shanghai Composite was up by just 0.24 per cent.
Analysts at Citi said they remain overweight on China as it remains an attractive equity market given reasonable valuations of the stocks, noting that all key metrics including price-earnings ratio and price-book ratio are below historical average.
