Chinese stocks rallied after Beijing took stronger action to support the world’s second-largest economy, showcasing determination to stem the market’s selloff.
The CSI 300 Index advanced as much as 1.2% early Wednesday, its biggest gain in a month. A gauge of Chinese stocks listed in Hong Kong jumped more than 3%, set to end a four-day losing streak.
The long-awaited rebound came after the government’s latest push to boost growth with a rare increase in the budget deficit ratio and President Xi Jinping’s unprecedented visit to the central bank. The nation’s legislature approved a plan to raise the fiscal deficit ratio for 2023 to about 3.8% of gross domestic product from the 3% set in March, which includes issuing additional sovereign debt worth 1 trillion yuan ($137 billion) in the fourth quarter to support disaster relief and construction.
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Given the current market’s “super-depressed level,” the latest support measures could lead to some short-covering and trigger a rebound, said Willer Chen, senior research analyst at Forsyth Barr Asia Ltd. “But the key question is how long this is going to last,” as the support to the consumption recovery will be relatively small, he said.
The CSI 300 Index had erased all the gains seen during their massive reopening rally that took off late last year as persistent concerns about the health of the property sector helped drive an unprecedented foreign outflow from the onshore market. While fresh measures are welcome news for stock investors, the rally’s sustainability remains in doubt. Earlier steps including a cut to the stamp duty of stock transactions have fallen flat in the face of a real estate crisis and rising geopolitical tensions.
China has rarely adjusted the budget mid-year, having previously done so in periods including 2008, in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake and in the wake of the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s.
